May 6, 2021 • 37 mins
Hour 3 of A&G features a letter from Mort! (about preserving science). Plus, a comedic look at a day in the life of dad (via a press conference), Biden whispers and we look at this economic plan!
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington
Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty Armstrong and Getty Show.
President Biden said this week that during his trip to
Europe in June, he hopes and expects to meet with
Russian President Vladimir Putin. That can be arranged, said a
(00:30):
paper weight on his desk. I need to pay better
attention to the jokes, so so explain that one Russia spine?
Oh oh. President Biden said this week that during his
trip to Europe in June, he hopes and expects to
meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That can be arranged,
said a paper weight on his desk. All of a sudden,
(00:52):
Russians were able to talk to him through the paper weight.
They're spying on the President. I thought it was like
a delusional old man joke. I feel like I feel
like I was left flat that. Can you hit me
with another joke? Let's see if this one makes me laugh? Yeah? One,
that's funny. Huh. Star quarterback Tom Brady said recently that
he would trade two of his seven Super Bowl rings
to have won a championship. At the end of his
two thousand and seven undefeated season. Sorry, but we already
(01:13):
made a deal, said Satan. Huh No, sorry, we already
made a deal. Tom Brady made a deal with the
devil to to have you know, the whole model, good looks,
seven super Bowls all that. Right, does he have to
become the best quarterback of all time? Right? Exactly? Well,
we have to get to this. This is something that
(01:35):
is funny. I guarantee it's funny. Somebody, some comedian, did
this skit where he ever you ever watch at the
end of a ball game and they're doing the press
conference and they're talking to the losing coach and he's
there and he's like sweaty and his shirts loose, and
he's like, yeah, we just we had a rough day
out there today. It's a dad talking about his day
raising his kids as if he's as if he's a
(01:56):
coach in a press conference, and it's funny. Love that.
Get to that. This half hour great. Also this hour
shocking demographic information out of China. China is shrinking like
a pair of jeans in a too hot dryer. Oh
my god, they ever get that under control, they'll fall
down to only a billion people. Well, there are ramifications, sir.
(02:17):
Also speaking of Asia, how Japan is planning to pull
off the Olympics, and some interesting stats on Japan's COVID
experience that blew my mind. So last Hour Jack brought
us the tale of progressives who are still hardcore COVID
sheltering even though nobody says it's necessary. What was the
(02:38):
premise of the article or from the atlanding the liberals
who can't quit lockdown? Yeah, that's it right, and we're
trying to like psychoanalyze what's going on there. And I
was reminded of a piece that Jonah Goldberg wrote that
alert listener Mort passed along, and I'll tell you what,
a guy named Mort. That's a man of substance. That's
a man who won't do you wrong. It's a solid
(02:59):
fellow Mort. You're not going to run into a Mort
who's like Flighty and a dreamer. No, that's a solid
man Mort. Anyway, Mort passed this along, and it's Jonah
talking about a radio show he'd heard, which I listened
to now and again Radio Lab. They do a pretty
good job. I mean they're liberals, but they're they're skilled
(03:21):
radio people. Here's the premise if in some cataclysm, all
of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed and only one
sentence was passed on to the next generation of creatures,
what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words.
That was a question posed by the legendary physicist Richard Feynman,
(03:43):
who's trying to revamp the physics curriculum for undergrad students
at cal Tech, and the goal was to explain to
them why physics mattered. Now it should be taught to
students in the hopes of inspiring them to become physicists
and unlock the universe. What an interesting thing, one sentence
you can pass on to the next post technological society
(04:06):
they're starting, they're practically apes. His own answer to his
own question was he said, I believe it's the atomic
hypothesis or the atomic fact or whatever you want here.
It is all things are made of atoms, little particles
that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when
they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being
squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will
(04:28):
see there's an enormous amount of information about the world
if you apply little imagination thinking. That is the secret
to physics. He goes on to explain that this one
sentence would open a world of scientific inquiry for a
civilized civilization eager to hear it. Okay, and we'll post
Jonah's piece because it has links to the physicist's lecture,
(04:48):
for instance, and if you want to read up or
listen any of this on your own. So Jonah says,
I've learned about this all from a recent episode radio
episode of Radio Lab program I enjoy, but I hated
this episode. Hate is the right word hate, He says
it three times. The setup was fascinating, as was the
initial illumination of what Feineman was getting at. The idea
(05:10):
for the show itself was great. They set out to
ask experts from a wide swath of life what they're
one sentence would be. So let me cut to the
chasi rights and tell you what I hope for. I
wanted to hear an engineer answer Fineman's question and a mathematician.
I wanted to hear from medical doctors, political scientists, geneticists, economists,
legal scholars, historians. I wanted to know what headstart they
(05:32):
would give a society starting from scratch. It's an amazing
exercise boiled down the most important insight from your life's work,
in the work of everyone else in your discipline, into
the most information filled sentence possible, for the purpose of
giving a new civilization ahead. Start. Do you have one?
I don't. I would love to think about it for
(05:53):
a couple of minutes. Yeah, just thinking about it for
a couple of minutes. I think something along the lines of,
look around you and look at your life experience of
the way people behave. People always behave that way, they
will always behave that way. Human nature is immutable. That's
a good immutable change change. You can write it down.
I'll do spell check. Keep in mind, we are working
(06:16):
our way back to the progressives who won't let go
of COVID knockdown a lockdown, all right, So so stay
with me now. So anyway, he points out that it
will be a fascinating exercise to hear all those different ideas,
and he says, by the way, as awesome as that
would be, I'm not a gross materialist or technocrat. I'd
love the opportunity to hear a theologian offer a single
sentence to guide a new civilization. What guidance would a
(06:38):
Christian scholar, give how about a Buddhist, a Muslim? Philosophers
have something intriguing to stay to say? Instead, I mostly
heard a lot of nonsense and preening, the specifics of
which we'll share it with you in a second. I
was our original air names nonsense in preening. Man, we
wore tuxedos and h were a weird kind of show.
(07:00):
Then it never caught on. Yeah, I would just spout
crap that didn't make any sense, and then Jack would
talk about how wonderful we are. It was nonsense and braining. Actually,
let me when we get to the meat of this,
you're gonna love it, but simply say, salad we've been enjoying,
maybe a cheese platter. Simply Safe is an award winning
home security system. We've told you about the technology. It's great,
(07:22):
it's the best, it wins all sorts of awards. But
what really sets simply Safe apart or it's people, highly
trained security experts who keep an eye out for when
you need help any time a day. So you've taken
the entire thirty minutes it's probably going to take you
to set up this simply Safe home security system yourself.
Nobody came to your home. Now you've got it set up,
and when an alarm goes off, a person who cares
(07:43):
is there for you with a phone call to make
sure you're okay. And then when an emergency happens, a
person who cares is there for you by getting fire
and police respondence to your front door right away. And
even if you're just having a problem setting up your system,
a person who cares is there for you with a
friendly chat and a quick resolution for your house, your workshop.
If your business simply safe, just go to simply safe
dot com slash armstrong. You get a free security camera
(08:04):
just because you know was and you can customize your
system to your space. It says sixty day riskery trial,
nothing to lose. Go to simply safe dot com slash
armstrong again, simply safe dot com slash armstrong. Okay, So,
having set up this really cool question, people from various
disciplines distill it down to the one sentence you want
(08:26):
to tell a new civilization that's springing up from the
ashes of ours. They got no technology, they have no science,
they got nothing. What one sentence would you give them?
Apparently they talked to a very large group of people
but only a handful made the cut, rights Jonah. The
first out of the block was Caitlin Dowdy, a writer
and mortician, who thought it vital to tell the sentient
(08:47):
inheritors of the Earth, you will die, and that's the
most important thing. Next came Esperant. What you can't just
move on from that? That's okay, thanks for that info.
I'll go all right. Next came Esperanza Spalding. You gave
an interesting but familiar summary of the reintroduction of wolves
(09:07):
in Yellowstone in order to set up the idea that
it's important to respond creatively to fear. Kor Jefferson, a
Hollywood screenwriter, first offered the following, race isn't real unless
you make it real, at which point it will become
the biggest problem in the whole world. But then he
switched to a sermonet on how fear is the root
of all of our problems. I will for you with
(09:29):
the rest of that. But Meryl Garbas, a musician, also
thinks fear is a problem, big problem. She thought it
would be most helpful to sing her sentence. Unfortunately, I
couldn't understand the words. I've been taking them in order.
But you get the point. Other contributions included the vital
importance of telling these new beings that God is dead,
that God is a woman, that everything is connected. The
writer Nicholson Baker came out and came within orbit of
(09:51):
an interesting point. He noted that if, say, a superintelligent
form of seals, yes seals, inherited Feineman's sentence about physics,
it wouldn't be particularly useful for their needs. They'd want
to figure out how to get around to the beach
and maybe invent a slide that gets them into the
water faster. If you gave them the atomic hypothesis, what
is that very bright seal going to do? Invent a
(10:12):
nuclear bomb? But then he said, we should tell them
you know more than you can say. It was an
interesting little disquisition on how words don't capture reality fully.
But if I want to build a civilization, I use
that slip of paper as kindling for fire. What good
would that do the seals? How would that get them
closer to the beach anyways? Long as short for that matter,
(10:36):
how it's telling them they'll die one day, or that
God is a woman, or that she doesn't exist be
of any help in any other effort, etc. Etc. And
then then the futurist Jaron Lanier was the biggest disappointment
because essentially he was worried about them building an atomic
(10:56):
bomb with the physicists information. One Reddit commentation hit hit
the nail on the head when he or she said
they destroyed an exceptional topic and made it into a
therapy session for sad people. A therapy session for sad people.
And here's where I hope to bring it home. And
I know this is getting a little long, but I
just think it's terrific. There is an amazing amount of
(11:19):
ingratitude embedded in those assumptions, made all the more appalling
by the fact that Radio Lab is usually good at science.
In this episode, while conceding that the Feinemann hypothesis would
illuminate the path understanding genetics, biology, engineering, and of course physics,
as well as all the material things that these disciplines provide,
from vaccines to electric lightbulbs, to spaceships, electron microscopes to
(11:40):
the very podcasts that pay their bills, they corralled a
wide assortment of people to say, the best guidance you
could give a new civilization the stuff you'd read on
the bulletin board outside the office of a woman's studies professor,
or maybe the school's therapist. We've spent thousands of years
clawing out of a natural environment where it was normal
for humans, including babies, to die in pain. We created
(12:03):
machines and other technology, including political technology, that made the
creation of art and beauty and long fulfilled lives possible.
And it didn't seem to occur to anyone that we
might owe more to the aqueduct, the cotton gin, the
micro chip, or the Constitution than we do it to
a Hollywood screenwriter who struggled with racism, or an artist
who thinks that the one thing the next civilization needs
(12:24):
most is a painting of God as a woman. It's
just staggering how much these people take for granted. But
that doesn't even capture their contempt. The upshot of what
most of their answers is the stuff they're taking for
granted doesn't even really matter, might even be bad. What
matters is their feelings and their little pet projects and grievances.
It's like they're holding a seminar and diversity training on
(12:45):
a ship at sea as the iceberg cuts a swath
through the Hull. Rather than think seriously about how to
survive or help others survive, they're desperate to make one
last point about the importance of self esteem or maybe
an EA funding. There was a time when in America,
practical knowledge was recognized as vitaloo improving the material conditions
of Americans. It goes on for a little while longer.
(13:06):
We're coming up on a break, whether by text at
four one, five, two nine five KFTC or email mailbag
at Armstrong and getty dot com. What's going on here,
the contempt for all that is practical and wonderful and
amazing that's made human life so good, and instead bitching
(13:26):
about tiny little problems. I like it. I don't know.
I don't know if I can diagnose it exactly, but
we'd love to hear your interesting conversation coming up. Among
other things, a dad at the end of the day
in a press conference about how his day went. Armstrong
(13:58):
the Armstrong in getting show. I am for securing this state,
I am pro law enforcement, I'm pro border protection. Okay,
I pro I We need these people and they do
(14:21):
a wonderful job. So that's just a little bit of
a very long interview Sean Hannity had with Caitlyn Jenner,
who's running for governor of California. I took in about
half of it. It was pretty typical fair not that
I mean that in a bad way, but it was.
She came off as a pretty typical politician, Um, you know,
with the right answers for people who lean to the right,
(14:44):
and the clips I've heard were solid, Yeah you're fine. Yeah.
MSNBC's Joy Reid says Caitlyn Jenner does not represent the
trans community. So that's that usual thing of unless you're if,
unless you're part of the party, you're supposed to be
in a certain group, then clearly there's something wrong with you.
And apparently Joy reads in charge of deciding that. Yeah, yeah,
handy for the rest of us. I had one other
(15:06):
comment on the I don't remember what it was. Anyway,
Maybe I'll think of that later on. It seems like
we're a long way away. Um, this is kind of funny,
convenient comedians put this together. I don't know if you
ever watch press conferences after sporting events and they interview
the players and the coaches. This is the like the
losing coach when they're just like, you know, their tie loosened,
(15:28):
they're all worn out, everything like that. I don't know,
things didn't go well, but this is a dad after
a long day of being a dad, sitting up there
at the table and taking questions. Sam up to day. Yeah, honestly,
just felt like we got behind early after the milk
spill and the marker on the wall. We just felt
like we'd a plan and catch up the rest of
the day. Right before you went to the story, you
called a timeout. Was there an attitude change after that? Yeah,
(15:50):
it felt like we were losing our heads there for
a minute, so we wanted to just calm things down
and get back to the basics. Did you ever find
your keys? No? No, no idea, we're there. You gave
him a snack half hour before dinner or was that plan? No?
Lost track of time. Was just wasn't thinking and so
three bites at dinner. That's on me. And didn't look
like you had many answers to the double teams That
(16:11):
a question? Is that a question? Question? It's the whole
thing is very funny. I want to hear the whole thing.
That's hilarious. At one point, he reaches up and pulls
a lego out of his hair. That's pretty funny. Yeah,
I just had to call them things down, things that
have gotten out of hand, and you never find your keys. No, no,
I still don't know whar they like. We are losing
(16:31):
our heads. Beautiful. The snack thirty minutes for dinner time
was that plan? No, no, I just died lost track
of time. And that's on me. Through three bites at dinner,
that's on me. Oh, we have we have the whole
thing at Armstrong and Gudea dot com. You can zap
it around to your friends and Sharet watch the whole
thing and when your kids are younger, that is very
(16:53):
much what it's like at the end of the day.
It's just, oh my god, you called a time out
there just before the girls. Yeah, yeah, I feel like, No,
I love that at the beginning about how Yeah, I
felt like after the milk spill and the marker on
the wall, we just we were falling too far behind,
having dealt with plenty of both of those as that
we all. That's beautiful. I can't. I may watch the
(17:16):
whole thing during the commercials or again. You get it
at Armstrong and Getty dot com, along with our podcast
and the rest of it, you know. Getting back to
the Jonah Goldberg piece that I was hammering earlier, one
of his conclusions is that they're just so obsessed with feelings.
Anything practical is you show contempt for it? All you
(17:37):
care about is feelings. I don't know. Is that the
personality type? I don't know. Armstrong and Getty, the Armstrong
and Getty show. And what's going to grow America more?
(18:09):
What's going to help you in your security more? The
super wealthy having to pay three point I'm yeah, three
points nine percent less tax or have an entire generation
of Americans having associate degrees. That's why all the economists,
(18:35):
even a Wall Street A pointed out, guess what crows
the economy? What do you say? Did you say you
love me? What it was? There's a ghost behind me?
It grows the economy. Oh, I understand the impact of
a whisper in a speech, like to get attention. But
if you already talk like this, you can't do that. Yes,
(18:59):
I don't why we're already whispering. We're already whispering. You
know what problem with that is no one can hear you.
I lust for roast beef? What what did you say
you know what, Jack, you promised us. There are a
couple of great pieces in the Wall Street Journal by
how incredibly dangerous the messing with the DNA of our
(19:19):
country is that Biden's doing. We ought to get to that.
This half hour a proposing nothing and justified in no way.
Clip number nineteen, please Sean, don't pet the snake man
twenty Pet the python again? What sir? This is a
drive through? Uh? That's the uh, the idiot Coomo brother
(19:44):
who's on TV right, Yes, yeah, I was supposed to
the one who's a governor. That just an expression he
uses or I can't imagine. Don't pet the snake. Okay,
the python again? Okay, but python is a snake. I'm confused.
Don't pet the snake? All right, all right, pet the
(20:06):
python again. I'm giving mixed messages Here're so fickle, alright,
so semantical in nature. I don't know what those clips
are from. I don't know what they mean. I don't care.
They just amuse me. Michael, you remember what I asked
you for earlier. I'll cue you wait for my visual queue.
(20:28):
Here we go. It's a brand new feature on The
Armstrong and Getty Show. Welcome to Joe Getty's Asia Fantasia
because everything has to have a clever name, right, Okay, right,
that's plenty, and I make it stuff. A couple of
stories happen to be from Asia that I found really interesting.
Number one. The Chinese Communist Party has again delayed the
(20:52):
release of their census results and demographers think China is
already experiencing negative population grow a bunch of technical stuff
you don't need to know. On April twenty ninth, their
official National Bureau of Statistics published a one sentence report
that said in twenty twenty, China's population continues to grow
(21:13):
and specific data will be released in the seventh National
Census bulletin, but no data has been released in its
way overdue as early as last year, a well known
Chinese demographer and author of the book Big Country with
an Empty Nest said in a post on Twitter that
in his twenty twenty census simulation study using computer models, etc.
(21:35):
He actually he projected the actual population of China is
about one point two six billion, does not exceed one
point two eight billion, and is even less likely to
be anywhere near the officially announced one point four billion.
He thinks China is experiencing experiencing a sharp decline in
birth and has serious long term democrat a demographic problem.
(21:58):
They still have a buttload of people to use the
technical term, but this guy actually thinks China. I'm sorry.
India may be bigger than China at this point, but
they have a catastrophic drop in birthrates. Anyway, I could
go into the details, but who cares, and none of
us would remember it tomorrow anyway. Just remember China's got
(22:18):
giant demographic problems. The young people old people thing is
way out of sync and getting worse. Second story from
Joe Getty's Asia Fantasia. There it is. Japan is going
to go ahead with the Summer Olympics, they say, even
(22:39):
though a large majority of Japanese people say don't. We
don't want it, which is interesting a couple of things.
They don't want it because of the pandemic. I'm sure
that answer is complicated. Now. We got a text yesterday.
I don't know how representative it is, but somebody said,
I got a worker friend who's in Japan and their
(23:02):
first shot vaccine isn't scheduled until September. That's how far
they are behind us, and get them. So if that's
where they are in Japan, I can see why. I mean,
if they haven't gotten on the whole vaccination train yet,
I can see why you think, what are we doing?
Here's the crazy part. It's and I'll get to back
to the Olympic plans because they're kind of surprising. But
(23:22):
they haven't had the vaccine. They haven't given out the
vaccine much because they haven't needed the vaccine. They've achieved
a remarkable feat. Overall deaths declined in twenty twenty, even
as they were surging in the US and much of
the world. They kept their COVID toll low. Bah bah bah,
So why what did Japan do right? Now? Keeping in
(23:43):
mind that, what did Florida do wrong? What did California
do right? What did New York do right? These things change.
It evolved in a month after somebody answers it with
a great authority, everything's changed, and you realize that was
a load of crap. But having giving you a shaker
assault to put a grain of it with this. It
(24:05):
already had a culture of mask wearing to prevent illness,
especially during the cold weather. Masks became almost ubiquitous last year.
The government also virtually closed its borders, and it was
quick to focus on the settings where the coronavirus was
most likely to spread. Listen, now, sensible this is, and
how stupid it is. We didn't have it in this country.
And doctor Fauci, I'm looking at you, you old phony.
(24:28):
The people in Japan were warned to avoid the Three seas,
closed spaces, crowded spaces, and close contact. Yeah. Well, if
we ever have one of these pandemics again in my lifetime,
I hope we all just like throw on masks, you know,
closed down large gatherings where people are closed together. If
you want, and leave everything else open, it'll be fine. Certainly,
(24:51):
let the freaking kids play in the park, avoid the
three seas. But listen to this Brazil, and these numbers again,
they're fairly accurate. Brazil, it's not in Asia. I thought
this was Asia. Fantasia it is. But sometimes, Jack, you
can best illustrate what's happening in Asia by looking outside.
What did somebody knock the kyota out of that guy's
(25:12):
hand or whatever he's playing. Brazil had nineteen hundred deaths
per million, Britain nineteen hundred, the US seventeen hundred. Just
for instance, Japan eighty two. Wow, not eighty two hundred
and eighty two instead of seventeen hundred. Here eighty two,
remove my advocus around. Yeah, that's good stuff right there.
(25:35):
The success has led to one problem, however, writes The
New York Times, Japan has been slow to a vaccinated
its population. Only two percent of residents have received a shot.
No sure, if nobody's dying or getting sick, you would think,
what's the point. And they're dragging their feet over approving
the vaccines and stuff like that. Japan is more than
willing to shut down their borders and not worry about
(25:55):
Hillary Clinton calling him xenophobic and racist and the rest
of that bull and I almost dropped an s bomb.
But getting back briefly to the Olympic thing, because I
think he might find it interesting. The Olympics, yep. Um,
no fans outside of Japan, no international fans whatsoever. Athletes, coaches, journalists,
and Olympic officials did not know that, many of whom
(26:18):
will probably have already been vaccinated. They'll have to take
several COVID tests before coming. Athletes will be tested every
day during the Olympics with others being tested less frequently.
They're trying to get the few vaccines they have to
the ulsters. But don't plan on going to watch the Olympics,
So I will get to one of those Wall Street
journal pieces about how the new social programs coming out
(26:40):
of the Biden administration is really going to change America.
And you know, if you lean right, it's for the worst.
But it's there's no denying it. It's a major change.
Seems like something we should discuss more than just kind
of letting it happen, because I thank god at least
it's not Trump. You know that attitude. It's not just
a change in government or a change in programs. It's
a change in families. It's a changing human beings and
(27:01):
how we perceive life. Got a funny story of a
politician zoom background that got him in trouble. I've never
done the zoom background thing, but well, this person probably
shouldn't have stay tuned Armstrong and get the Armstrong and
(27:30):
Getty show. Well it s Doug out done a duty. Rude.
Speaking of school in New York City, just announced that
next year snow Days will be replaced with the Remote
Learning Days, which explains why third grade has spent the
(27:50):
day learning to say friggin deplasia. Two pieces in the
Wall Street Journal today, and this is like numbers nineteen
and twenty of the last two weeks of their opinion
writers and guest opinion writers trying to make it clear
to everyone that look, this seven trillion dollars this and
(28:14):
that the Biden administration is pushing through is going to
massively restructure society top to bottom and incentives and all
kinds of different things. And we ought to maybe take
a look at that before with this is happening awfully fast,
this complete restructuring of society. It's a lot more fundamental
than just a government policy. You know. I'm gonna start
with the final paragraph of one of these op ed
(28:36):
pieces because I just I just thought it was so good,
very tarantino esque. Yeah, agreed, where he says, after everything
he said in this long article, it turns out that
the true big steal of the twenty twenty election Joe
Biden never asked voters if they wanted to replace the
American Dream. He's doing it anyway. Headline on this one
(28:59):
as Democrats are killing the American Dream. Joe Biden's American
Family's Plan replaces individuals striving with middle class entitlements. From
a guy named Daniel heming Jury who has been writing
for the Wall Street Journal as long as I've been
reading it, I'll just read a couple of paragraphs. President
Biden's American Families Act makes one political reality officially clear.
The Democratic Party has given up on the American dream.
(29:20):
The Biden proposals, coming as they do with the Democratic
Progressives rise to power, present the American people with a
once in a lifetime decision about what kind of country
they want to live in for the next half century. Wait,
it's not presented this way. Does it seem like it?
Does it seem like it's being presented to people? Is
this is a huge deal and we ought to debate it.
(29:41):
We're just helping people out having the rich pay their
fair share. This isn't about culture wars or standard Kensian
stimulus spending. The Biden Plan is about public policies that
will redesign American society. The American Famili's Plan, another recent
Democratic legislation, implicitly posed several important questions. Is the traditional
American idea of upward mobility still important? If so, how
(30:03):
should upward mobility happen through Washington or individual effort. Indeed,
should the habit of individual striving give way to a
presumably more important goal of nationalized paternalism, it's no surprise
that a liberalism that embraced the sixteen nineteen projects rewriting
of the founding would not would not stop there and
try now, despite its almost invisible congressional majority, to displace
(30:25):
the country's originating idea of individual opportunity with a broad
birth to death entitlement state. And then he goes through
a long list of all the things that are being
proposed that we've talked about quite a bit. I'll just
give you a little more of this other article that's
in there today. I just thought it was striking that
it was the same day. That's good stuff, troubling stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
(30:49):
And what many people don't understand, and I don't really
have time to explain, is that without some bad results,
you can't have the incredibly good results we've had for
the last three hundred years. You have to have risk
and reward, you have to have striving. Yeah. Uh, Well,
so this other piece from a guy named Christophe for
(31:12):
Dumouth of the Wall Street Journal America's welfare state is
on borrowed time. Biden has fully embraced the mad goal
of giving ninety eight percent of the population lavish benefits
at no cost. Has anyone noticed that the president has
proposed increasing federal spending by nearly one trillion dollars a
year while promising that ninety eight percent of Americans will
pay nothing for it. The very idea would have seemed
(31:33):
mad to every previous generation of Americans. Today it is
considered conventional. You know, as pointed out yes day in
a podcast, as listening to that Joe Biden, he even
on the stuff that he said he was wanting to
do while he was running, he was way to the
left of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I think I
(31:55):
guess because Elizabeth and Bernie were so far out there
that it didn't strike people that way. You know, that,
along with the at least he's not Trump crowd was
enough to get him over well. And I take no
pleasure in admitting this. I got completely duped by Biden.
I thought his entire career was pointing toward what he
would be as president. It's not at all. He veered
(32:17):
so hard left. I'm astounded he sees an opportunity to
be a FDR type character. Let me get to this part.
I didn't read this earlier in the show. And if
you don't get all the hours of the show, you
should get Armstrong and Getty dot com, or you can
check out the podcast. The stuff about the tax system
that I hadn't grasped before. The ang on Demand is
(32:42):
the radio show repackaged essentially. Then we do one more
thing and have some other stuff too. So talks about
the principles driving force. The principle is the driving force
of the Biden plans, which would be a finance mainly
by new borrowing, not taxes. The principles less salient and
other advanced democracies because they raise healthy revenue from broad
based and often regressive levies on consumption, such as value
(33:03):
added taxes. The US, by contrast, is long dependent on
a highly progressive income tax that is complex and wasteful
and produces relatively little revenue. The American tax system is
increasingly an adjunct of borrowed benefits policy, a means of
distributing benefits rather than a means for paying for them.
(33:23):
The conversion of the IRS to a social welfare agency
would continue a pace under the Biden plans with their
profusion of targeted tax credits for families and green energy,
making the point that the IRS is more in the
business now of you know, moving money around to different
people than it is to try to raise revenue to
(33:46):
run the country. Yeah, I get it, which is really interesting.
It's clearly true, and so and politicians in particularly on
the left to figure it out. That's the way to
make that's the way to redistribute wealth. We take the IRS,
which most people think of as a you know, a
way to raise revenue, and we just make that the
arm of redistributing wealth. Yeah, it's an interesting distinction, but
(34:07):
I think I get it. By the way, I'd like
to make a point, it's only going to resonate with
boring eggheads like myself who have no friends outside of
the bastiat society. There are plenty of ways to make
a value added tax not regressive or the fair tax
or whatever. You exempt the first x amount of spending
so that you know, poorer families can buy everything they
need and the rest of it and they're not tax
(34:29):
So it's our tax system is such, it's it's bizarre.
It's it's astounding that it exists. It's impossible, no sentient
being would create it, and yet it is unprecedented aggressiveness
in the Biden administration and Congress toward a welfare state. Yeah.
(34:50):
I expected this is the direction of the United States
would go eventually. I just didn't think it could happen
this freaking bath. Yeah, And as cal Unicornians, we'd like
to point out to the rest of all how it works.
You get the broadest possible group of people on the
receiving end of benefits. They begin to depend on the government.
They expect the government to give them money. They will
(35:11):
always vote for you. And then you restrict the tax
base as tightly as you can do as few people
as you can, demonize them, insist they pay their fair share,
insist that it's unholy from middle class people to pay
significant taxes or whatever. And you're undefeatable as a political party.
What are the one percent going to vote you out?
They can't, but you are. You are very defeatable as
(35:33):
an entity. As you go broke like California, Illinois and
other you know big tax states are How are the
states that have the highest taxes going broke? Well, it's
because you've doled out so much stuff, and that's when
now what the whole country is going to do. And
there's very little pushback, almost none, and then not from
the Republicans, not from the freaking Republicans. And yet we
(35:56):
saw that pole the other day that it was a
pretty significant It's like two thirds of Americans are highly
concerned about the national pad or whatever. I don't know
what's going on. I don't know. I don't even know
what to think anymore. I forgot to talk about this.
Do you have time? How much time? I got? My goal?
I can jam this in every other word. Politician zoom
background can't hide fact that he's actually driving. Do we
(36:17):
have this posted at armstrong in getty dot com because
the visual is key, but I'll try to describe it
to you. It's the typical zoom meeting you've been on,
where there's a bunch of people in little boxes on there, right,
And that's kind of funny that the politicians are actually
debating various distracted driving laws. This guy's got this beautiful
background behind him of like a sunset in the trees
(36:38):
or whatever like that. Nice. Unfortunately he's too far up
in the background where you can see his seat belt.
He's actually driving in his car, debating distracted driving. Oh
you see him. Not only can you see his seat
belt there in his lovely you know, backyard yard and
look that he's got there, but he keeps like looking
back and forth, checking his blind spot, you know, trying
(36:59):
to back up and all that he's doing. That he's
obviously driving. It's not even a close question as a seatbelt,
just right through the middle of it. I hope the
guys pulled over by the irony police and ticketed. We
have that video at Armstrong and getty dot com and
of course all the hours of the podcast and the
next hour is going to be good too, I hope. Yeah.
And that great video of the tired dad holding a
(37:21):
press conference just so funny, good stuff all at Armstrong
and Getty dot com. Armstrong and Getty
From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington
Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty Armstrong and Getty Show.
President Biden said this week that during his trip to
Europe in June, he hopes and expects to meet with
Russian President Vladimir Putin. That can be arranged, said a
(00:30):
paper weight on his desk. I need to pay better
attention to the jokes, so so explain that one Russia spine?
Oh oh. President Biden said this week that during his
trip to Europe in June, he hopes and expects to
meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That can be arranged,
said a paper weight on his desk. All of a sudden,
(00:52):
Russians were able to talk to him through the paper weight.
They're spying on the President. I thought it was like
a delusional old man joke. I feel like I feel
like I was left flat that. Can you hit me
with another joke? Let's see if this one makes me laugh? Yeah? One,
that's funny. Huh. Star quarterback Tom Brady said recently that
he would trade two of his seven Super Bowl rings
to have won a championship. At the end of his
two thousand and seven undefeated season. Sorry, but we already
(01:13):
made a deal, said Satan. Huh No, sorry, we already
made a deal. Tom Brady made a deal with the
devil to to have you know, the whole model, good looks,
seven super Bowls all that. Right, does he have to
become the best quarterback of all time? Right? Exactly? Well,
we have to get to this. This is something that
(01:35):
is funny. I guarantee it's funny. Somebody, some comedian, did
this skit where he ever you ever watch at the
end of a ball game and they're doing the press
conference and they're talking to the losing coach and he's
there and he's like sweaty and his shirts loose, and
he's like, yeah, we just we had a rough day
out there today. It's a dad talking about his day
raising his kids as if he's as if he's a
(01:56):
coach in a press conference, and it's funny. Love that.
Get to that. This half hour great. Also this hour
shocking demographic information out of China. China is shrinking like
a pair of jeans in a too hot dryer. Oh
my god, they ever get that under control, they'll fall
down to only a billion people. Well, there are ramifications, sir.
(02:17):
Also speaking of Asia, how Japan is planning to pull
off the Olympics, and some interesting stats on Japan's COVID
experience that blew my mind. So last Hour Jack brought
us the tale of progressives who are still hardcore COVID
sheltering even though nobody says it's necessary. What was the
(02:38):
premise of the article or from the atlanding the liberals
who can't quit lockdown? Yeah, that's it right, and we're
trying to like psychoanalyze what's going on there. And I
was reminded of a piece that Jonah Goldberg wrote that
alert listener Mort passed along, and I'll tell you what,
a guy named Mort. That's a man of substance. That's
a man who won't do you wrong. It's a solid
(02:59):
fellow Mort. You're not going to run into a Mort
who's like Flighty and a dreamer. No, that's a solid
man Mort. Anyway, Mort passed this along, and it's Jonah
talking about a radio show he'd heard, which I listened
to now and again Radio Lab. They do a pretty
good job. I mean they're liberals, but they're they're skilled
(03:21):
radio people. Here's the premise if in some cataclysm, all
of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed and only one
sentence was passed on to the next generation of creatures,
what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words.
That was a question posed by the legendary physicist Richard Feynman,
(03:43):
who's trying to revamp the physics curriculum for undergrad students
at cal Tech, and the goal was to explain to
them why physics mattered. Now it should be taught to
students in the hopes of inspiring them to become physicists
and unlock the universe. What an interesting thing, one sentence
you can pass on to the next post technological society
(04:06):
they're starting, they're practically apes. His own answer to his
own question was he said, I believe it's the atomic
hypothesis or the atomic fact or whatever you want here.
It is all things are made of atoms, little particles
that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when
they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being
squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will
(04:28):
see there's an enormous amount of information about the world
if you apply little imagination thinking. That is the secret
to physics. He goes on to explain that this one
sentence would open a world of scientific inquiry for a
civilized civilization eager to hear it. Okay, and we'll post
Jonah's piece because it has links to the physicist's lecture,
(04:48):
for instance, and if you want to read up or
listen any of this on your own. So Jonah says,
I've learned about this all from a recent episode radio
episode of Radio Lab program I enjoy, but I hated
this episode. Hate is the right word hate, He says
it three times. The setup was fascinating, as was the
initial illumination of what Feineman was getting at. The idea
(05:10):
for the show itself was great. They set out to
ask experts from a wide swath of life what they're
one sentence would be. So let me cut to the
chasi rights and tell you what I hope for. I
wanted to hear an engineer answer Fineman's question and a mathematician.
I wanted to hear from medical doctors, political scientists, geneticists, economists,
legal scholars, historians. I wanted to know what headstart they
(05:32):
would give a society starting from scratch. It's an amazing
exercise boiled down the most important insight from your life's work,
in the work of everyone else in your discipline, into
the most information filled sentence possible, for the purpose of
giving a new civilization ahead. Start. Do you have one?
I don't. I would love to think about it for
(05:53):
a couple of minutes. Yeah, just thinking about it for
a couple of minutes. I think something along the lines of,
look around you and look at your life experience of
the way people behave. People always behave that way, they
will always behave that way. Human nature is immutable. That's
a good immutable change change. You can write it down.
I'll do spell check. Keep in mind, we are working
(06:16):
our way back to the progressives who won't let go
of COVID knockdown a lockdown, all right, So so stay
with me now. So anyway, he points out that it
will be a fascinating exercise to hear all those different ideas,
and he says, by the way, as awesome as that
would be, I'm not a gross materialist or technocrat. I'd
love the opportunity to hear a theologian offer a single
sentence to guide a new civilization. What guidance would a
(06:38):
Christian scholar, give how about a Buddhist, a Muslim? Philosophers
have something intriguing to stay to say? Instead, I mostly
heard a lot of nonsense and preening, the specifics of
which we'll share it with you in a second. I
was our original air names nonsense in preening. Man, we
wore tuxedos and h were a weird kind of show.
(07:00):
Then it never caught on. Yeah, I would just spout
crap that didn't make any sense, and then Jack would
talk about how wonderful we are. It was nonsense and braining. Actually,
let me when we get to the meat of this,
you're gonna love it, but simply say, salad we've been enjoying,
maybe a cheese platter. Simply Safe is an award winning
home security system. We've told you about the technology. It's great,
(07:22):
it's the best, it wins all sorts of awards. But
what really sets simply Safe apart or it's people, highly
trained security experts who keep an eye out for when
you need help any time a day. So you've taken
the entire thirty minutes it's probably going to take you
to set up this simply Safe home security system yourself.
Nobody came to your home. Now you've got it set up,
and when an alarm goes off, a person who cares
(07:43):
is there for you with a phone call to make
sure you're okay. And then when an emergency happens, a
person who cares is there for you by getting fire
and police respondence to your front door right away. And
even if you're just having a problem setting up your system,
a person who cares is there for you with a
friendly chat and a quick resolution for your house, your workshop.
If your business simply safe, just go to simply safe
dot com slash armstrong. You get a free security camera
(08:04):
just because you know was and you can customize your
system to your space. It says sixty day riskery trial,
nothing to lose. Go to simply safe dot com slash
armstrong again, simply safe dot com slash armstrong. Okay, So,
having set up this really cool question, people from various
disciplines distill it down to the one sentence you want
(08:26):
to tell a new civilization that's springing up from the
ashes of ours. They got no technology, they have no science,
they got nothing. What one sentence would you give them?
Apparently they talked to a very large group of people
but only a handful made the cut, rights Jonah. The
first out of the block was Caitlin Dowdy, a writer
and mortician, who thought it vital to tell the sentient
(08:47):
inheritors of the Earth, you will die, and that's the
most important thing. Next came Esperant. What you can't just
move on from that? That's okay, thanks for that info.
I'll go all right. Next came Esperanza Spalding. You gave
an interesting but familiar summary of the reintroduction of wolves
(09:07):
in Yellowstone in order to set up the idea that
it's important to respond creatively to fear. Kor Jefferson, a
Hollywood screenwriter, first offered the following, race isn't real unless
you make it real, at which point it will become
the biggest problem in the whole world. But then he
switched to a sermonet on how fear is the root
of all of our problems. I will for you with
(09:29):
the rest of that. But Meryl Garbas, a musician, also
thinks fear is a problem, big problem. She thought it
would be most helpful to sing her sentence. Unfortunately, I
couldn't understand the words. I've been taking them in order.
But you get the point. Other contributions included the vital
importance of telling these new beings that God is dead,
that God is a woman, that everything is connected. The
writer Nicholson Baker came out and came within orbit of
(09:51):
an interesting point. He noted that if, say, a superintelligent
form of seals, yes seals, inherited Feineman's sentence about physics,
it wouldn't be particularly useful for their needs. They'd want
to figure out how to get around to the beach
and maybe invent a slide that gets them into the
water faster. If you gave them the atomic hypothesis, what
is that very bright seal going to do? Invent a
(10:12):
nuclear bomb? But then he said, we should tell them
you know more than you can say. It was an
interesting little disquisition on how words don't capture reality fully.
But if I want to build a civilization, I use
that slip of paper as kindling for fire. What good
would that do the seals? How would that get them
closer to the beach anyways? Long as short for that matter,
(10:36):
how it's telling them they'll die one day, or that
God is a woman, or that she doesn't exist be
of any help in any other effort, etc. Etc. And
then then the futurist Jaron Lanier was the biggest disappointment
because essentially he was worried about them building an atomic
(10:56):
bomb with the physicists information. One Reddit commentation hit hit
the nail on the head when he or she said
they destroyed an exceptional topic and made it into a
therapy session for sad people. A therapy session for sad people.
And here's where I hope to bring it home. And
I know this is getting a little long, but I
just think it's terrific. There is an amazing amount of
(11:19):
ingratitude embedded in those assumptions, made all the more appalling
by the fact that Radio Lab is usually good at science.
In this episode, while conceding that the Feinemann hypothesis would
illuminate the path understanding genetics, biology, engineering, and of course physics,
as well as all the material things that these disciplines provide,
from vaccines to electric lightbulbs, to spaceships, electron microscopes to
(11:40):
the very podcasts that pay their bills, they corralled a
wide assortment of people to say, the best guidance you
could give a new civilization the stuff you'd read on
the bulletin board outside the office of a woman's studies professor,
or maybe the school's therapist. We've spent thousands of years
clawing out of a natural environment where it was normal
for humans, including babies, to die in pain. We created
(12:03):
machines and other technology, including political technology, that made the
creation of art and beauty and long fulfilled lives possible.
And it didn't seem to occur to anyone that we
might owe more to the aqueduct, the cotton gin, the
micro chip, or the Constitution than we do it to
a Hollywood screenwriter who struggled with racism, or an artist
who thinks that the one thing the next civilization needs
(12:24):
most is a painting of God as a woman. It's
just staggering how much these people take for granted. But
that doesn't even capture their contempt. The upshot of what
most of their answers is the stuff they're taking for
granted doesn't even really matter, might even be bad. What
matters is their feelings and their little pet projects and grievances.
It's like they're holding a seminar and diversity training on
(12:45):
a ship at sea as the iceberg cuts a swath
through the Hull. Rather than think seriously about how to
survive or help others survive, they're desperate to make one
last point about the importance of self esteem or maybe
an EA funding. There was a time when in America,
practical knowledge was recognized as vitaloo improving the material conditions
of Americans. It goes on for a little while longer.
(13:06):
We're coming up on a break, whether by text at
four one, five, two nine five KFTC or email mailbag
at Armstrong and getty dot com. What's going on here,
the contempt for all that is practical and wonderful and
amazing that's made human life so good, and instead bitching
(13:26):
about tiny little problems. I like it. I don't know.
I don't know if I can diagnose it exactly, but
we'd love to hear your interesting conversation coming up. Among
other things, a dad at the end of the day
in a press conference about how his day went. Armstrong
(13:58):
the Armstrong in getting show. I am for securing this state,
I am pro law enforcement, I'm pro border protection. Okay,
I pro I We need these people and they do
(14:21):
a wonderful job. So that's just a little bit of
a very long interview Sean Hannity had with Caitlyn Jenner,
who's running for governor of California. I took in about
half of it. It was pretty typical fair not that
I mean that in a bad way, but it was.
She came off as a pretty typical politician, Um, you know,
with the right answers for people who lean to the right,
(14:44):
and the clips I've heard were solid, Yeah you're fine. Yeah.
MSNBC's Joy Reid says Caitlyn Jenner does not represent the
trans community. So that's that usual thing of unless you're if,
unless you're part of the party, you're supposed to be
in a certain group, then clearly there's something wrong with you.
And apparently Joy reads in charge of deciding that. Yeah, yeah,
handy for the rest of us. I had one other
(15:06):
comment on the I don't remember what it was. Anyway,
Maybe I'll think of that later on. It seems like
we're a long way away. Um, this is kind of funny,
convenient comedians put this together. I don't know if you
ever watch press conferences after sporting events and they interview
the players and the coaches. This is the like the
losing coach when they're just like, you know, their tie loosened,
(15:28):
they're all worn out, everything like that. I don't know,
things didn't go well, but this is a dad after
a long day of being a dad, sitting up there
at the table and taking questions. Sam up to day. Yeah, honestly,
just felt like we got behind early after the milk
spill and the marker on the wall. We just felt
like we'd a plan and catch up the rest of
the day. Right before you went to the story, you
called a timeout. Was there an attitude change after that? Yeah,
(15:50):
it felt like we were losing our heads there for
a minute, so we wanted to just calm things down
and get back to the basics. Did you ever find
your keys? No? No, no idea, we're there. You gave
him a snack half hour before dinner or was that plan? No?
Lost track of time. Was just wasn't thinking and so
three bites at dinner. That's on me. And didn't look
like you had many answers to the double teams That
(16:11):
a question? Is that a question? Question? It's the whole
thing is very funny. I want to hear the whole thing.
That's hilarious. At one point, he reaches up and pulls
a lego out of his hair. That's pretty funny. Yeah,
I just had to call them things down, things that
have gotten out of hand, and you never find your keys. No, no,
I still don't know whar they like. We are losing
(16:31):
our heads. Beautiful. The snack thirty minutes for dinner time
was that plan? No, no, I just died lost track
of time. And that's on me. Through three bites at dinner,
that's on me. Oh, we have we have the whole
thing at Armstrong and Gudea dot com. You can zap
it around to your friends and Sharet watch the whole
thing and when your kids are younger, that is very
(16:53):
much what it's like at the end of the day.
It's just, oh my god, you called a time out
there just before the girls. Yeah, yeah, I feel like, No,
I love that at the beginning about how Yeah, I
felt like after the milk spill and the marker on
the wall, we just we were falling too far behind,
having dealt with plenty of both of those as that
we all. That's beautiful. I can't. I may watch the
(17:16):
whole thing during the commercials or again. You get it
at Armstrong and Getty dot com, along with our podcast
and the rest of it, you know. Getting back to
the Jonah Goldberg piece that I was hammering earlier, one
of his conclusions is that they're just so obsessed with feelings.
Anything practical is you show contempt for it? All you
(17:37):
care about is feelings. I don't know. Is that the
personality type? I don't know. Armstrong and Getty, the Armstrong
and Getty show. And what's going to grow America more?
(18:09):
What's going to help you in your security more? The
super wealthy having to pay three point I'm yeah, three
points nine percent less tax or have an entire generation
of Americans having associate degrees. That's why all the economists,
(18:35):
even a Wall Street A pointed out, guess what crows
the economy? What do you say? Did you say you
love me? What it was? There's a ghost behind me?
It grows the economy. Oh, I understand the impact of
a whisper in a speech, like to get attention. But
if you already talk like this, you can't do that. Yes,
(18:59):
I don't why we're already whispering. We're already whispering. You
know what problem with that is no one can hear you.
I lust for roast beef? What what did you say
you know what, Jack, you promised us. There are a
couple of great pieces in the Wall Street Journal by
how incredibly dangerous the messing with the DNA of our
(19:19):
country is that Biden's doing. We ought to get to that.
This half hour a proposing nothing and justified in no way.
Clip number nineteen, please Sean, don't pet the snake man
twenty Pet the python again? What sir? This is a
drive through? Uh? That's the uh, the idiot Coomo brother
(19:44):
who's on TV right, Yes, yeah, I was supposed to
the one who's a governor. That just an expression he
uses or I can't imagine. Don't pet the snake. Okay,
the python again? Okay, but python is a snake. I'm confused.
Don't pet the snake? All right, all right, pet the
(20:06):
python again. I'm giving mixed messages Here're so fickle, alright,
so semantical in nature. I don't know what those clips
are from. I don't know what they mean. I don't care.
They just amuse me. Michael, you remember what I asked
you for earlier. I'll cue you wait for my visual queue.
(20:28):
Here we go. It's a brand new feature on The
Armstrong and Getty Show. Welcome to Joe Getty's Asia Fantasia
because everything has to have a clever name, right, Okay, right,
that's plenty, and I make it stuff. A couple of
stories happen to be from Asia that I found really interesting.
Number one. The Chinese Communist Party has again delayed the
(20:52):
release of their census results and demographers think China is
already experiencing negative population grow a bunch of technical stuff
you don't need to know. On April twenty ninth, their
official National Bureau of Statistics published a one sentence report
that said in twenty twenty, China's population continues to grow
(21:13):
and specific data will be released in the seventh National
Census bulletin, but no data has been released in its
way overdue as early as last year, a well known
Chinese demographer and author of the book Big Country with
an Empty Nest said in a post on Twitter that
in his twenty twenty census simulation study using computer models, etc.
(21:35):
He actually he projected the actual population of China is
about one point two six billion, does not exceed one
point two eight billion, and is even less likely to
be anywhere near the officially announced one point four billion.
He thinks China is experiencing experiencing a sharp decline in
birth and has serious long term democrat a demographic problem.
(21:58):
They still have a buttload of people to use the
technical term, but this guy actually thinks China. I'm sorry.
India may be bigger than China at this point, but
they have a catastrophic drop in birthrates. Anyway, I could
go into the details, but who cares, and none of
us would remember it tomorrow anyway. Just remember China's got
(22:18):
giant demographic problems. The young people old people thing is
way out of sync and getting worse. Second story from
Joe Getty's Asia Fantasia. There it is. Japan is going
to go ahead with the Summer Olympics, they say, even
(22:39):
though a large majority of Japanese people say don't. We
don't want it, which is interesting a couple of things.
They don't want it because of the pandemic. I'm sure
that answer is complicated. Now. We got a text yesterday.
I don't know how representative it is, but somebody said,
I got a worker friend who's in Japan and their
(23:02):
first shot vaccine isn't scheduled until September. That's how far
they are behind us, and get them. So if that's
where they are in Japan, I can see why. I mean,
if they haven't gotten on the whole vaccination train yet,
I can see why you think, what are we doing?
Here's the crazy part. It's and I'll get to back
to the Olympic plans because they're kind of surprising. But
(23:22):
they haven't had the vaccine. They haven't given out the
vaccine much because they haven't needed the vaccine. They've achieved
a remarkable feat. Overall deaths declined in twenty twenty, even
as they were surging in the US and much of
the world. They kept their COVID toll low. Bah bah bah,
So why what did Japan do right? Now? Keeping in
(23:43):
mind that, what did Florida do wrong? What did California
do right? What did New York do right? These things change.
It evolved in a month after somebody answers it with
a great authority, everything's changed, and you realize that was
a load of crap. But having giving you a shaker
assault to put a grain of it with this. It
(24:05):
already had a culture of mask wearing to prevent illness,
especially during the cold weather. Masks became almost ubiquitous last year.
The government also virtually closed its borders, and it was
quick to focus on the settings where the coronavirus was
most likely to spread. Listen, now, sensible this is, and
how stupid it is. We didn't have it in this country.
And doctor Fauci, I'm looking at you, you old phony.
(24:28):
The people in Japan were warned to avoid the Three seas,
closed spaces, crowded spaces, and close contact. Yeah. Well, if
we ever have one of these pandemics again in my lifetime,
I hope we all just like throw on masks, you know,
closed down large gatherings where people are closed together. If
you want, and leave everything else open, it'll be fine. Certainly,
(24:51):
let the freaking kids play in the park, avoid the
three seas. But listen to this Brazil, and these numbers again,
they're fairly accurate. Brazil, it's not in Asia. I thought
this was Asia. Fantasia it is. But sometimes, Jack, you
can best illustrate what's happening in Asia by looking outside.
What did somebody knock the kyota out of that guy's
(25:12):
hand or whatever he's playing. Brazil had nineteen hundred deaths
per million, Britain nineteen hundred, the US seventeen hundred. Just
for instance, Japan eighty two. Wow, not eighty two hundred
and eighty two instead of seventeen hundred. Here eighty two,
remove my advocus around. Yeah, that's good stuff right there.
(25:35):
The success has led to one problem, however, writes The
New York Times, Japan has been slow to a vaccinated
its population. Only two percent of residents have received a shot.
No sure, if nobody's dying or getting sick, you would think,
what's the point. And they're dragging their feet over approving
the vaccines and stuff like that. Japan is more than
willing to shut down their borders and not worry about
(25:55):
Hillary Clinton calling him xenophobic and racist and the rest
of that bull and I almost dropped an s bomb.
But getting back briefly to the Olympic thing, because I
think he might find it interesting. The Olympics, yep. Um,
no fans outside of Japan, no international fans whatsoever. Athletes, coaches, journalists,
and Olympic officials did not know that, many of whom
(26:18):
will probably have already been vaccinated. They'll have to take
several COVID tests before coming. Athletes will be tested every
day during the Olympics with others being tested less frequently.
They're trying to get the few vaccines they have to
the ulsters. But don't plan on going to watch the Olympics,
So I will get to one of those Wall Street
journal pieces about how the new social programs coming out
(26:40):
of the Biden administration is really going to change America.
And you know, if you lean right, it's for the worst.
But it's there's no denying it. It's a major change.
Seems like something we should discuss more than just kind
of letting it happen, because I thank god at least
it's not Trump. You know that attitude. It's not just
a change in government or a change in programs. It's
a change in families. It's a changing human beings and
(27:01):
how we perceive life. Got a funny story of a
politician zoom background that got him in trouble. I've never
done the zoom background thing, but well, this person probably
shouldn't have stay tuned Armstrong and get the Armstrong and
(27:30):
Getty show. Well it s Doug out done a duty. Rude.
Speaking of school in New York City, just announced that
next year snow Days will be replaced with the Remote
Learning Days, which explains why third grade has spent the
(27:50):
day learning to say friggin deplasia. Two pieces in the
Wall Street Journal today, and this is like numbers nineteen
and twenty of the last two weeks of their opinion
writers and guest opinion writers trying to make it clear
to everyone that look, this seven trillion dollars this and
(28:14):
that the Biden administration is pushing through is going to
massively restructure society top to bottom and incentives and all
kinds of different things. And we ought to maybe take
a look at that before with this is happening awfully fast,
this complete restructuring of society. It's a lot more fundamental
than just a government policy. You know. I'm gonna start
with the final paragraph of one of these op ed
(28:36):
pieces because I just I just thought it was so good,
very tarantino esque. Yeah, agreed, where he says, after everything
he said in this long article, it turns out that
the true big steal of the twenty twenty election Joe
Biden never asked voters if they wanted to replace the
American Dream. He's doing it anyway. Headline on this one
(28:59):
as Democrats are killing the American Dream. Joe Biden's American
Family's Plan replaces individuals striving with middle class entitlements. From
a guy named Daniel heming Jury who has been writing
for the Wall Street Journal as long as I've been
reading it, I'll just read a couple of paragraphs. President
Biden's American Families Act makes one political reality officially clear.
The Democratic Party has given up on the American dream.
(29:20):
The Biden proposals, coming as they do with the Democratic
Progressives rise to power, present the American people with a
once in a lifetime decision about what kind of country
they want to live in for the next half century. Wait,
it's not presented this way. Does it seem like it?
Does it seem like it's being presented to people? Is
this is a huge deal and we ought to debate it.
(29:41):
We're just helping people out having the rich pay their
fair share. This isn't about culture wars or standard Kensian
stimulus spending. The Biden Plan is about public policies that
will redesign American society. The American Famili's Plan, another recent
Democratic legislation, implicitly posed several important questions. Is the traditional
American idea of upward mobility still important? If so, how
(30:03):
should upward mobility happen through Washington or individual effort. Indeed,
should the habit of individual striving give way to a
presumably more important goal of nationalized paternalism, it's no surprise
that a liberalism that embraced the sixteen nineteen projects rewriting
of the founding would not would not stop there and
try now, despite its almost invisible congressional majority, to displace
(30:25):
the country's originating idea of individual opportunity with a broad
birth to death entitlement state. And then he goes through
a long list of all the things that are being
proposed that we've talked about quite a bit. I'll just
give you a little more of this other article that's
in there today. I just thought it was striking that
it was the same day. That's good stuff, troubling stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
(30:49):
And what many people don't understand, and I don't really
have time to explain, is that without some bad results,
you can't have the incredibly good results we've had for
the last three hundred years. You have to have risk
and reward, you have to have striving. Yeah. Uh, Well,
so this other piece from a guy named Christophe for
(31:12):
Dumouth of the Wall Street Journal America's welfare state is
on borrowed time. Biden has fully embraced the mad goal
of giving ninety eight percent of the population lavish benefits
at no cost. Has anyone noticed that the president has
proposed increasing federal spending by nearly one trillion dollars a
year while promising that ninety eight percent of Americans will
pay nothing for it. The very idea would have seemed
(31:33):
mad to every previous generation of Americans. Today it is
considered conventional. You know, as pointed out yes day in
a podcast, as listening to that Joe Biden, he even
on the stuff that he said he was wanting to
do while he was running, he was way to the
left of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I think I
(31:55):
guess because Elizabeth and Bernie were so far out there
that it didn't strike people that way. You know, that,
along with the at least he's not Trump crowd was
enough to get him over well. And I take no
pleasure in admitting this. I got completely duped by Biden.
I thought his entire career was pointing toward what he
would be as president. It's not at all. He veered
(32:17):
so hard left. I'm astounded he sees an opportunity to
be a FDR type character. Let me get to this part.
I didn't read this earlier in the show. And if
you don't get all the hours of the show, you
should get Armstrong and Getty dot com, or you can
check out the podcast. The stuff about the tax system
that I hadn't grasped before. The ang on Demand is
(32:42):
the radio show repackaged essentially. Then we do one more
thing and have some other stuff too. So talks about
the principles driving force. The principle is the driving force
of the Biden plans, which would be a finance mainly
by new borrowing, not taxes. The principles less salient and
other advanced democracies because they raise healthy revenue from broad
based and often regressive levies on consumption, such as value
(33:03):
added taxes. The US, by contrast, is long dependent on
a highly progressive income tax that is complex and wasteful
and produces relatively little revenue. The American tax system is
increasingly an adjunct of borrowed benefits policy, a means of
distributing benefits rather than a means for paying for them.
(33:23):
The conversion of the IRS to a social welfare agency
would continue a pace under the Biden plans with their
profusion of targeted tax credits for families and green energy,
making the point that the IRS is more in the
business now of you know, moving money around to different
people than it is to try to raise revenue to
(33:46):
run the country. Yeah, I get it, which is really interesting.
It's clearly true, and so and politicians in particularly on
the left to figure it out. That's the way to
make that's the way to redistribute wealth. We take the IRS,
which most people think of as a you know, a
way to raise revenue, and we just make that the
arm of redistributing wealth. Yeah, it's an interesting distinction, but
(34:07):
I think I get it. By the way, I'd like
to make a point, it's only going to resonate with
boring eggheads like myself who have no friends outside of
the bastiat society. There are plenty of ways to make
a value added tax not regressive or the fair tax
or whatever. You exempt the first x amount of spending
so that you know, poorer families can buy everything they
need and the rest of it and they're not tax
(34:29):
So it's our tax system is such, it's it's bizarre.
It's it's astounding that it exists. It's impossible, no sentient
being would create it, and yet it is unprecedented aggressiveness
in the Biden administration and Congress toward a welfare state. Yeah.
(34:50):
I expected this is the direction of the United States
would go eventually. I just didn't think it could happen
this freaking bath. Yeah, And as cal Unicornians, we'd like
to point out to the rest of all how it works.
You get the broadest possible group of people on the
receiving end of benefits. They begin to depend on the government.
They expect the government to give them money. They will
(35:11):
always vote for you. And then you restrict the tax
base as tightly as you can do as few people
as you can, demonize them, insist they pay their fair share,
insist that it's unholy from middle class people to pay
significant taxes or whatever. And you're undefeatable as a political party.
What are the one percent going to vote you out?
They can't, but you are. You are very defeatable as
(35:33):
an entity. As you go broke like California, Illinois and
other you know big tax states are How are the
states that have the highest taxes going broke? Well, it's
because you've doled out so much stuff, and that's when
now what the whole country is going to do. And
there's very little pushback, almost none, and then not from
the Republicans, not from the freaking Republicans. And yet we
(35:56):
saw that pole the other day that it was a
pretty significant It's like two thirds of Americans are highly
concerned about the national pad or whatever. I don't know
what's going on. I don't know. I don't even know
what to think anymore. I forgot to talk about this.
Do you have time? How much time? I got? My goal?
I can jam this in every other word. Politician zoom
background can't hide fact that he's actually driving. Do we
(36:17):
have this posted at armstrong in getty dot com because
the visual is key, but I'll try to describe it
to you. It's the typical zoom meeting you've been on,
where there's a bunch of people in little boxes on there, right,
And that's kind of funny that the politicians are actually
debating various distracted driving laws. This guy's got this beautiful
background behind him of like a sunset in the trees
(36:38):
or whatever like that. Nice. Unfortunately he's too far up
in the background where you can see his seat belt.
He's actually driving in his car, debating distracted driving. Oh
you see him. Not only can you see his seat
belt there in his lovely you know, backyard yard and
look that he's got there, but he keeps like looking
back and forth, checking his blind spot, you know, trying
(36:59):
to back up and all that he's doing. That he's
obviously driving. It's not even a close question as a seatbelt,
just right through the middle of it. I hope the
guys pulled over by the irony police and ticketed. We
have that video at Armstrong and getty dot com and
of course all the hours of the podcast and the
next hour is going to be good too, I hope. Yeah.
And that great video of the tired dad holding a
(37:21):
press conference just so funny, good stuff all at Armstrong
and Getty dot com. Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!