Matter of Facts: Hold On Tight

[00:00:06] Welcome back to the Matter of Facts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping guns and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at mwfpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Ravelet, Andrew, Nick are on the other side of the mic, and here's your show.

[00:00:30] Welcome back to Matter of Facts Podcast. We have survived another week. So the snow didn't kill me, the thaw didn't kill me, and it's back up to like 71 degrees as of right now. So that is just the roller coaster of the Southeast Louisiana weather. We had an 89 degree temperature swing. From what to what? Negative 35 last week to 54 today. That is... that... Okay, listen.

[00:01:01] Welcome to the Midwest. Mother Nature is drunk. Look, somebody needs to come down here and get her. Because I thought she was just drunk in my front yard, but apparently she's just drunk everywhere. Nah, man, that's just standard Midwest. We get this shit all the time. Okay, well, forgive me, but after nine and a half inches of snow, I just assumed that all hell's broken loose everywhere. Yes, Kyle.

[00:01:28] Kyle, I understand there are no pictures of Nick in the intro. To be fair, that intro is two years old and Nick was not on this side of the microphone back then. But I have promised him and myself and asked my wife to help that when we see... When we are all in person together up in Michigan in a couple of months, we will get sufficient pictures and video to redo that intro. Mm-hmm. We'll figure it out. At least. At least that's the plan.

[00:01:57] Hopefully it goes better than most of the other plans I make because those tend to fall apart very quickly. Well, if your wife knows she's supposed to take pictures and my wife knows they're supposed to take pictures, some pictures will be taken. Thank Christ for our spouses. Dude, I tell you, it's that and preloading my pants the night before are the only reasons why I'm a respectable adult. Sounds fair. Okay. Okay. Kyle, I don't know if Nick is capable.

[00:02:27] I can't grow a beard. I actually cannot. I look like a teenage homeless person if I go without shaving for more than two days. I mean, that's a genetics thing. I didn't even know I could grow this until I got deep into my 30s and I was like, oh, I can grow a beard. Yeah, no. Couldn't in my 20s. Or most of my 30s. But anyway, admin work really, really quick. Thanks. Thanks to all the patrons. Thanks for keeping the show funded, if not on the rails.

[00:02:56] Y'all are no good at keeping the show on the rails, but it's more fun off the rails. So there is that. If you like fun, cheeky t-shirts, there's links for merch down in the show description. You should check those out. Support a small business. And I mean, small business as doing the merch fulfillment and production, not our autistic selves. And Cypress Survivalist. So we've been talking about this. My wife and I and my sister and my brother-in-law started a nonprofit, started doing some preparedness events in southeast Louisiana.

[00:03:24] First one's coming up March 8th at Fountain Blue State Park. And I realized literally this past week when my wife is starting to put out some social media advertising about it. I have never mentioned that when you go to Fountain Blue State Park, it's at the big pavilion. Now, anybody that's in this area or looks at a state park map should be able to figure out the big pavilion is the big pavilion.

[00:03:50] But if you are planning on coming, you will have to pay three bucks a head to the state park to get in. Sorry, that's just the cost to do a business, but it goes to keeping a really cool park open. And then you literally drive straight down the road all the way just about till you end up in the lake. And you'll see me waving at you and not doing cartwheels or anything, because if I do that, I'm going to be in traction.

[00:04:18] That's it for admin work. Great success. So we were going to talk about this last week, but, you know, talking about Snow Apocalypse kind of ran long. And it's a good thing we didn't because there's been so much that's happened in the last seven days. Yes, many, many things, but some good, some, some questionable. Yeah.

[00:04:49] So for anybody that's been living under a rock, the orange man is back in the White House in the executive branch behind the desk in the Oval Office. And. The freak out has been real. Oh, yes. The freak out has been real. The. Where do I even start with all this? I, I like I remember on the campaign trail, he plainly said he had a lot to do really quickly,

[00:05:18] but he was literally in the Oval Office signing executive orders within hours of being sworn in. And it, it hasn't stopped, Nick. Like that's what you and I were talking about. Nope. The show started like we could do this show every six hours and have new stuff to talk about because it's coming out so freaking fast right now. Yeah, we could. We probably could. I mean it.

[00:05:45] I personally am not a big fan of. I'm going to call it legislation by executive order. I'm not a big fan of that. Well. Um. The left has been doing that for a very long time and taking the high road does not seem like a winning position. It's not been a winning position.

[00:06:15] So playing by playing by the rules when you're the only side playing by the rules always ends poorly. When it comes to executive orders, my, my position is I hear what you're saying. I don't like the idea of legislating from the Oval Office, but the purpose of executive orders, whether they're used this way or not, is to communicate to the federal agencies. Yep. Like it is to direct the federal agencies.

[00:06:44] You will do ABCX, Y, Z. And the ones that are doing that, I'm all behind that. Yeah. That's fine. Now, the minute we start talking about trying to circumvent Congress, like even if, even if I think it's a good idea, we probably shouldn't be trying to do it that way. No, on, on principle, we shouldn't be doing that, but Congress should also be doing its job in passing single subject bills. Do you want to be the preacher or the choir, but we can't, we can't just do this back and forth the whole night.

[00:07:11] I mean, technically we can, we have microphones and no one has stopped us yet, but yes. And, you know, and the other thing of it is that even if you don't want to use like the moral argument of, well, we shouldn't legislate from the Oval Office, it's not the right way to do things. It's not the way you want to do things. Because it means that in three years and like 11 and a half months, the next guy could do

[00:07:36] exactly what Biden did at the end of Trump's first term and shred everything you did via EO in 15 seconds. Yep. So it really is a better idea to push these priorities through the legislative process rather than try to circumvent Congress. Even as I acknowledge that Congress is very hesitant to put their names on anything that could get them kicked out of their seat of power. And they are very happy to abdicate their authority to the president.

[00:08:06] And that's kind of how we got to where we are today in a lot of ways. Yeah, that Congress refusing to do the hard things is why we are agreed in the position that we are now. Now that the problem with that is being a politician has become a career. Yep. And it was this country, it was not meant to be your career.

[00:08:31] You were supposed to come serve the people for your term and then go the fuck home to deal with the problems you made. Agreed. And that dovetails nicely into the first little thing I put up here. Trump's OPM speaks, Feditors freak out. For anybody not familiar with the term, Feditor is... So there are a number of subreddits on Reddit. And I will be the first to admit that Reddit is kind of digital cancer in a lot of ways.

[00:09:00] I mostly check it out every now and then to see what people are saying when they think they have anonymity and where they don't expect any pushback. And most people that know me, I mean, I don't know any unreasonable people because if they were unreasonable, I wouldn't keep them around. But I like to know what the unreasonable people are saying when they think they're only talking to themselves.

[00:09:25] So anyway, there are a number of subreddits on Reddit that are filled to the brim with very angry, very histrionic, very, very, very histrionic federal employees. And they are collectively losing their entire crap because the orange man is telling them that he's in charge, which he kind of sort of is, and that he wants to make changes to

[00:09:53] how they're doing their jobs, which I never heard this much complaint or pushback when Biden was in charge or Harris or whoever was really in charge. And the two of them were just one. I don't know that Biden really sent any directives to federal employees. Like there were, there were some, but I don't recall him making aside from, from reversing any of Trump's orders, which the federal employees were already fighting anyway and already against anyway.

[00:10:22] I don't recall him making any grand sweeping changes. COVID vaccines. Do we have to go there? It's 2025. Yeah, but he didn't make those changes. That was a Trump thing. That he tried to mandate the entire federal workforce to take them. I believe it was. At least there was talks of the mandate before. Well, maybe I'm misremembering. It's been a hot minute. I mean, it has been a hot minute. And I'm not fed. Yeah. Thank God for that.

[00:10:52] You would friggin, you would commit seppuku with a pair of, with a pair of office scissors. My sister insists that I am just Ron Swanson with less facial hair. She thinks that one day I will start working for the government just to be an obstructionist. I, I, I mean, Nick, I, USA jobs.com, but no, no, no, no, no, no. I like my CNC machines and my micrometers. I am sticking to that. I am happy there.

[00:11:22] I don't have to deal with the general public. I don't have to deal with politicians. Most of the time. Most of the time. No, you just have to deal with politicians because you live in Illinois. Yes. But anyway, hoping that one last cheeseburger will really get the cardiac going. Oh, so anyway. Yeah. I mean, you know, places that were once.

[00:11:48] Play places that were once discussing things like job openings or, you know, like they were actually like reasonably wholesome, kindhearted places to be. And people were uplifting each other and people were trying to support each other and advising each other have descended into literally exactly what the news is claiming they are.

[00:12:13] Like, I'd be the first to admit that, like, depending on which side of this, this situation you're on and what news sources you subscribe to, like, you could be forgiven for thinking that some of the more strident warnings about how, like, the whole federal government is trying to subvert Trump. You could be forgiven for thinking that's a lot of hyperbole. And I would say it is hyperbole for the entire government.

[00:12:38] Comma, however, comma, there are quite a few people, if they are to be judged by their words, who are absolutely dead set on anything Trump says, we want to fight against it. We want to be as obstructionist as possible for the next four years. Some advocating for outright rebellion. Some are. Yeah. Some are. Some are literally. Using those exact words. Rebelling against Trump. Yeah.

[00:13:03] And now the frustrating part of this to me is that, you know, like, would you fight me if I insinuated that the federal workforce is skewed towards the Democrats? No, I wouldn't. I mean, it is a workforce that attracts collectivism. Yes. Now, we could have a very roiling debate about what that skew is, what that makeup is.

[00:13:30] But it is skewed towards Democrats. It's skewed towards liberalism, progressives. It just is. But it is. Conservatives are less are less predisposed to utilizing government authority. They would rather handle the problem on their own just as a general personality type. And even if that only starts as a skew of 0.01 percent, if 0.01 percent are more likely to be leftists, those leftists will try to hire people that are like themselves because

[00:14:00] that is what leftist ideology pushes. And so you eventually get an escalating skew, which is what we're seeing now. Yeah. And the hard part about this situation is like, you know, for every person who is a screeching nutcase about this right now, there's somebody else out there in probably the exact same office that thinks their co-worker is just out of their freaking mind.

[00:14:24] There's a lot of independents and a lot of moderates who, I'll be honest, from like January 20th forward, don't seem to be that upset about things. They're just kind of like moving on, like, do my job. And my position on like the federal workforce and Nick, I don't think you'll fight me on this, but if you disagree, I'd love to hear it. But like, you know, my position on the federal workforce is that I, I would allege that the

[00:14:51] president is kind of the CEO of the federal workforce, but I don't think he is ultimately the federal workforce's boss. I think the voters are. So here's, here's where my thought. It'd be like a shareholders versus CEO sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So my position is kind of like, you know, if the people of this country have decided through their elected representatives that the government needs to be downsized, then

[00:15:17] quit bitching about it and just accept the fact that the government's going to be downsized. Some agencies are going to go away. Some jobs are going to go away because that is what the voters want to happen. And the voters are ultimately the bosses of the federal workforce. And if the voters determine that the other elected representatives, the priorities of the government are going to change, they're going to change. They rightfully should.

[00:15:40] So I guess like to me, the thing that frustrates me is this idea that like this very bureaucratic look down their nose opinion that seems to be forming of, we know better. We, we know better than the president. We know better than the white house. We know better than the voters. We know how things really work here. And I just keep going back to this idea that like, you know, very much, very much.

[00:16:05] And I'll admit when I was, when I was enlisted and for the years after I was enlisted, I had a very, very sharp opinion of civilian oversight of the military. Sure. I did. I was very critical of it. I felt like a lot of the problems that we had when I was in Iraq were directly linked to the fact that people that knew nothing about what we were doing were in charge. Yeah, but as I, but as I've aged, I've come around to the idea that the alternative is worse.

[00:16:34] You want a perfect example of that? Look at World War II Japanese military atrocities. Yes. That was a military with no civilian oversight. Yeah. And it really is. It sounds, there's probably somebody out there rolling the rise of this, but like it, it, it is almost like the argument of like the civilian ownership of firearms all over again. Is the end result of the civilian ownership of firearms that sometimes people do really stupid things in firearms and hurt people? Abso-freaking-lutely.

[00:17:03] But every time in history you've taken everybody's guns away, really bad things have happened on a really mass scale. So I always go back to this idea that like, even if we're not going to address the fact that everyone has a moral right to defend themselves, if you want to use the, if you want to use the utilitarian argument of the lesser of two evils, people being armed is still less than all the atrocities committed by governments when their people were disarmed.

[00:17:33] So I guess my position is does, does civilian oversight of the military sometimes make the military's job more difficult? Absolutely. Is it better than the alternative? Yes, it is. It took me well into my thirties to realize that. It's the best alternative we've found so far. You know, it's just, it's just like democracy. Yeah. Democracy is a terrible form of government, except for all of the other forms of government we've found are worse. Yeah. I got to address raggle fraggle. Go for it.

[00:18:01] I don't know if raggle fraggle means those jobs don't go away, they get absorbed somewhere else. So. So the intention is for, is to reduce the size of the federal workforce. We will see if that is what occurs. That's what I'm going to say. Yeah. So, but let me just, let me just say like to address what he's saying. Kind of. So in order, let's say hypothetically an agency gets shuttered or a job series or a

[00:18:30] group of people, a work unit, a line of business or whatever. Mm-hmm. You're all, you are all quote unquote laid off. They call it RIF in the federal government, reduction of force. When that happens, those employees get hiring preference for any open positions in the federal government. Fair enough. So kind of, yeah, they do get absorbed somewhere else. But the point is, is that if they're filling those jobs that would have otherwise been filled

[00:18:56] by people off the street, then the total number of open positions stabilizes. Because we had 20 people that were in this office got shut down. We had 20 open positions. These people filled that. And that's still a, that's still, that's not a reduction, but it is better than these 20 still work and 20 new people still work. So, and I mean, you could argue that shouldn't be the way it works, but quite frankly, this way the private sector works. It does. If you shut down a work unit, that's the same thing.

[00:19:24] If you shut down a work unit, the first thing that company does is try to reabsorb those people into the fold somewhere else. Like my father went through that when I was young, being put into a talent pool and then finding another job in the company. Like that's, that's normal. But anyway, so that's why I wanted to just take a minute to talk about like, yes, technically they don't go away, but there's nuance to that. And I don't think the nuance makes it a bad thing.

[00:19:49] We, I'm going to say we will see because if they do decide to reduce force drastically across a number of places, yes, there are going to be a lot of people that are leaving for ideological reasons, just like any other job. Yes. There will be people leaving, maybe taking early retirement and taking their seven months severance that they're offering because that's a pretty nice pad to your retirement. Seven months severance is nothing to sneeze at.

[00:20:16] But if it results in a net decrease overall, even if it's a small net decrease overall, it's kind of a win. I'm going to take it as a little bit of a win. Yeah. I'll be honest. The, um, the thing you're talking about, the seven months severance, I don't know. I'll be honest because that, that, that letter is not like a state secret.

[00:20:38] It's been reposted on social media 15 different times, but looking at it, I don't, so I know that a friend of ours in, in our little friendly chat brought up that he felt like this was Trump's attempt to like cleave the government of liberals and a popular repopulated with Trump loyalists. And the thing of it is, is that like, that's the intent.

[00:21:05] Well, but I don't, I don't think this works for that because best I'm aware, like the people that the white house could appoint to these agencies, these federal agencies are the SES or the special executive service. And those all go through best. I'm aware, congressional, congressional confirmation. And they're basically Trump appointees already. So like Trump doesn't have to offer this to get rid of those people. He literally just tells all the heads of these agencies, I want your resignation on my

[00:21:33] desk by noon and they're gone. And then he puts in whoever he wants. So the SES isn't up there on the chopping block. Your fifth, your GS 15s and under who are arguably the real horsepower of every agency. Those are your policymakers. Those are your implementers. Those are your, your upper and mid-level managers. Those are your senior employees. That's the horsepower of an agency. They're, I can't, I mean, I can't see this.

[00:22:03] This being a super palatable option for most of them, unless they are so ideologically bent that they just refuse to work for Donald Trump. And then this is their enticement to go ahead and go. Like, I don't think this, I don't think this, this letter is about ideology or replacing people. I think what it is is it's, it is an incentive for people that were already thinking about walking out the door to walk out the door so that number one, you don't have to fire those people.

[00:22:32] And so that's going to create open, open positions in places that are not, um, that you didn't have to create. And then when you do restructure your force, you can, you have more job openings in more places to put some of the people you would want to keep. Yeah. And thanks for the reminder piece to everybody hit the like button. It does help. And the comments help too. Mostly they help to, um, divert us from taking ourselves too seriously.

[00:23:01] You know, it's like, it's, it's like, it's like a little bowl that you just released into the China shop of my mind. Exactly. Watch how fast we get sidetracked. Yeah. And then you can just hear the breaking glass and the screaming anyway. So yeah, all that, all that has happened. And I'm sure by the time this podcast, like by the time we finished streaming this, there

[00:23:26] will be something new going on, but I can tell you that like everything the orange man is doing right now has a segment of this population extraordinarily upset, including apparently making good on campaign promises to take people who illegally entered this country and bringing them home to where they belong.

[00:23:47] So, um, I don't think I have ever seen a president, two presidents play FAFO like this publicly in my lifetime. It's been kind of interesting to watch. Look, the president of Columbia's economy is smaller than most of our state's economy. Yeah. Unless you include their cocaine exports, which I don't think are included. No, I think even including their cocaine exports.

[00:24:17] I'm pretty sure. Don't include that. Then it's minuscule. Oh yeah. Yeah. If you don't include the cocaine, but look, I'm sorry. Columbia does not have negotiating power in this. They just don't. Their lever isn't big enough. Their economy isn't big enough to actually threaten the U S in any meaningful way. Oh, darn. Coffee is going to get more expensive. Fine. I'll pay for that. I'm not going to stop drinking coffee because it doubled in price. Yeah.

[00:24:46] And, and raggle fraggle to be specific. I think the president was probably indulging in cocaine when he made the announcement that, that, that, that the RC 17s couldn't land on his soil, but we get coffee from many, many places in the world or than just Columbia, but that's another episode. But it was interesting to watch. I mean, this is a perfect example of what me, you and I had mentioned earlier that his Trump's tariff threats are, are a negotiating tactic.

[00:25:16] They are a negotiating tactic first. They are not the ends that he is trying to get to. And look at that. Lo and behold, within an hour, we can now deport people to Columbia. Yep. People that Columbia clearly doesn't want in Columbia. So why the heck would we want them here? Well, Nick, didn't you get the memo that like the United States is the dumping ground for everyone's illegal, everyone's undesirables period in discussion?

[00:25:46] I mean, okay. That used to be Australia. Well, we've seen how that turned out. Sidebar. So I, I know I was talking to y'all, the all patrons about this, but I do occasionally chuckle at the idea that there, there was pre Louisiana purchase when the French had control of Louisiana before the Spaniards took back control of it before we bought it. Anyway, way, way, way back in the day, there was actually a program sponsored by the King

[00:26:12] of France where he would pay somebody. He would pay able-bodied men to get on a boat to come to, you know, populate Louisiana and settle and everything in the name of the King. And the only stipulations were once you came here, you could not come back and you had to take a French prostitute from prison to be your wife, to go with you. Yep. And I'm like, so let's get out. Yeah. So, so let's, let's analyze this.

[00:26:42] There is a much less than 0% chance if you, if your family traces its roots back to France and you live in or about, you know, the boot of the, of the Louisiana purchase that you might be the product of vagabonds and hookers. There are worse people to be products of at least. But does that explain so many things about Louisiana? It explains Louisiana. Yeah. I mean, look, yes.

[00:27:12] The back in the day, they used to dump a lot of people they didn't want anywhere else because it was pretty hard to get back, but we're now a real country and we need to start taking ourselves as, as seriously as we used to. Yeah. I mean, look, if Columbia, if, if the president of Columbia is willing to is well, at least for an hour, willing to start a trade war with the U S over these people, how bad are they?

[00:27:43] How bad are some of these people? Fraggle fraggle. I trace mine to the Canucks that got kicked out actually. So that will be another funny story for us to have at another time when we talk about the origin of the Cajuns and how they got deported by the English because they wouldn't swear fealty to the King or the Queen. But anyway, that's a, that's a lengthy discussion. Yeah, it is.

[00:28:09] But you know, those, those quote unquote Canucks probably came from the same. That was your furnace. Wasn't it? I think it was. I, I didn't think it was going to come on because it's 54 degrees outside. Anyway, that's hard. My bad. I usually try to tap the mic when I hear that coming on. No, you're good. I just heard it and I was like, that's a good, that's a good noise. Yeah.

[00:28:35] But yeah, man, I mean, Columbia is Columbia is entirely. The entire country to me lacks either the financial or the military horsepower to tell us, no, we're not taking our own people back. But I had this, I had this thought and I don't know where it came from today, but I know that there's that group of people out there that is still insisting we need a legal pathway to citizenship for the people that are here.

[00:28:59] Like rather than deport them, we need to figure out a way to like, especially for people that were brought here as children really didn't have really didn't come here of their own volition. They were just kind of drug over the border and now they're here and they, this is the only country they've ever grown up knowing. Those are the people I do have some sympathy for. It is, it is not their fault, but I'm sorry. It is their problem. They should take it up with their parents. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:27] And it, it like me, me being me, it's a difficult, it's a difficult position not to empathize with, especially people that are brought here as children or the people that were. I can empathize with crack addicts too, but that doesn't mean that it's not their problem. Yeah. Yes. Am I an asshole? Absolutely. Convicted. But here's the thing, you know what conclusion I came to after the, at the end of this whole, oh, that really sucks. I wish we could do something.

[00:29:56] I came back to the inescapable conclusion that we do have a pathway towards citizenship. And if the white house wanted to, let's say offer something where like, Hey, you're here. You didn't come over your own volition. You can apply for citizenship. We will defer your deportation. As long as you don't do any stupid stuff, breaking laws, murder, rape, pillage, none of that nonsense. As long as you stay on the straight and narrow, you might have to back pay some taxes because let's call it what it is.

[00:30:27] But a lot of those kids, if they were brought here as children, they have been paying taxes if they're adults now. And that's fair. Through the DACA program and a few others. I mean, we've got a pathway. If you did not have a choice in coming here. So same thing with people that are trafficked and they come here without their free will, like, you know, the, the massage parlor girls and the sex workers that, that people do traffic here, which is terrible.

[00:30:53] In my opinion, those people should get a priority over the adults who knowingly broke the law to get here. Yeah. Now the only hard, now the only hard part, now the only hard part is going to be, how do you cleave those two populations from each other? Because you and I both know that the minute you say, Oh, but look, you can have an exception. And everyone's going to find a way to apply. It's like the whole issue with the people who claim for asylum at the border.

[00:31:19] They hand out pant leaflets that tell them exactly what to say so that they, so that border patrol cut them loose and let them come into the country. It's any, any system can be abused. And that's why, that's why totally get where Joe's coming from saying, having grown up in Cali, I don't care. Send them all back. I totally get that. But I, I don't know. Like to me, it's like, it's a really crappy situation.

[00:31:46] But at the end of the day, I have, I would say for like 95% of the people that have entered this country illegally, like you came here knowing you were breaking laws. You came here with total disregard in your heart and mind for our nation and our nation's laws. And if all 100% of that 95 or that 90% of that, whatever gets rounded up and shipped back to where they came from, I don't even see that as like victimizing them or doing something against them. Because all I'm doing is sending you back to where you came from when you shouldn't come

[00:32:16] here in the first place. At least not the way you did. Look, I see this. Yes, there is no perfect solution for this. We have to accept that. Innocent people that should not be harmed are probably going to be harmed in this process. You cannot have any, anything to do with millions of people that goes perfectly. But we have to do the hard things in order to make it better in the future.

[00:32:46] How are we going to clear the backlogs for all of these immigration courts? If we first don't get rid of all as many of the people as we can, that we know are a problem, which is why they've been starting with the violent criminals. Congrats. No fucking brainer. I mean, it's not like they're rounding up the lady that works at the local restaurant first. No, they're targeting MS-13. They're targeting the Latin Kings.

[00:33:14] They're targeting the cartels that we know that are here illegally and doing violence against American citizens. Yes, absolutely. Let's start with the very worst and ship them the hell home because you know what? Nobody's going to have a legitimate argument against that. And then we can start working on the harder edge cases. I so wish I thought for going to make a banner for this, but Nick, tell me you tell me you've you've been watched.

[00:33:40] I'm hoping you don't watch too much mainstream news because it is it is brain cancer in digital form. But have you heard the people that are literally arguing that we can't deport illegal immigrants because who will pick our crops for us? All right. So, I mean, yet again, we have. Hold up. Hold up. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Just go for it. Go for it. No, no, no. I don't want to say anything. Just just say that back to yourself. Oh, yeah. Oh, I know. Out loud. Say it back to yourself.

[00:34:10] Who will pick the cotton? I know. Good Christ. It is the cringest. There is going to be. Cridge take I have heard in such a long time. I mean, yes, it is. It is a shitty take, but they do kind of have a point. There are a lot of migrant workers on visas that do work for our farms.

[00:34:37] But a lot of but most of them are migrant workers on a visa and therefore lawfully in the country. So it's not a problem for them. Like, OK, great. If a farm is hiring a bunch of illegals. Number one, they're probably paying them dog shit under the table. So they're taking advantage of these people anyway.

[00:35:00] Number two, their living conditions are probably atrocious because they don't have to keep up with health and safety standards because no, the government doesn't know to look into these people. And so what? Oh, great. We need more victims. Joe said the crop picking thing was a three hour morning show on our local radio show.

[00:35:26] I'm just look, I'm just I'm just saying I heard the first time I heard someone say that out loud. I thought to myself, OK, this is a singular, singular, very dumb person. And if they had said that out loud and listen to themselves, they might have caught themselves. I don't think they would know. I don't think they would because look, Nancy Pelosi is a perfect example of this.

[00:35:53] During COVID, when everyone was losing their employment, she's standing in front of a $30,000 subzero freezer holding up $100 pints of ice cream. Talking about how we're all suffering the same. Now, these people just like someone to stand on the back of. That's really what it comes down to. They can't see themselves doing that work because they think that work is degrading. No, it's an honest living.

[00:36:21] And there's an awful lot of people, especially in some of the Rust Belt areas of this country, that have been denied an honest living through the importation of hyper cheap labor. Yeah. I was just going to say that. Open borders was a Koch brothers scheme for many, many years. Oh, Bernie Sanders rallied against it for decades. Was that before or after the DNC handed him hush money? That was before.

[00:36:50] Ah, funny how that works out. Yep. But, you know, I did. PCG has a good point here. Starship Troopers. The movie was bad, was bad in the best possible ways, but service guarantees citizenship. That is an idea. I mean. What kind of service? We could debate that, but. I have a thought about this actually.

[00:37:18] There has been a pathway through military service for non-citizens to earn citizenship, and there has been forever. Yep. In fact, through the entire life of the country, if I recall correctly. So, if memory serves me, I think I was an AIT with a guy from the Philippines. Sure. But anyway. Well, the American Philippines or the other Philippines? How many different Philippines are there? Well, because. Well, there. I believe some of the Philippines are U.S. territories.

[00:37:51] You're asking me to dig back through 25 years of head injuries and bad decisions. I'm fairly certain at least some of the Philippines are still U.S. territories. Yes, but again, you're asking me to dig through 25 years of head injuries and bad decisions. I wouldn't lay claim to any of my memories from back then. And I think it's like Puerto Rico with some of them. Not all of them, but some of them. Yeah. But my thought on this whole, like, service guarantees citizenship. Here's my idea.

[00:38:17] I believe that it would be probably a pretty cool idea if out of high school, everyone was required to, say, do two years of service. It doesn't have to be military. Hear me out. Because I will be the first to admit, A, not everybody should serve in the military. Not everybody physically can. Not everybody emotionally can. You take my wife and daughter and hand them a rifle and tell them to go shoot somebody in the face. They're not going to tolerate that very well.

[00:38:46] They are much gentler, happier, more sociable people than I am. Thank God for that. Thank Christ for that. And that's fine. Not everybody should be in the military. Not everybody should be forced to go into the military. I don't like that idea. But here's the thing. You could go volunteer at a soup kitchen. You could go volunteer here at a homeless shelter. You could volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. You could volunteer for all sorts of different things. You could go join your local organization that picks up trash on the side of the highway.

[00:39:16] All I think is that it would be a really nice idea if young people, say 17 to 19, 18 to 20, were taught the value of service to their fellow man of their country. And that doesn't have to be military. Although I think a lot of people would benefit from a little bit of military service at about that time.

[00:39:36] And it would frankly probably teach them a lot of skills that they would find useful as they either entered the workforce, entered trade school, or entered college. Because I can tell you that when I was 18 years old, I was a moron. But funny enough, after getting shipped halfway around the world and almost getting blown up a couple of times, I came home with a very different mentality and a burning hunger to get in and out of college as fast as humanly possible.

[00:40:04] And it turns out almost dying a few times lights a fire under a guy's ass. It definitely forcibly realigns your priorities. Like, let's say that. You know, I can see where you're coming from. The problems you're going to run into is if these people are doing it, they're going to need to be compensated for their time.

[00:40:32] Otherwise, you're just going to be hitting poor families harder. Fair. Yeah. You know, so it's got legs. I think the idea has legs. I think that it would need to be thought through by people far more intelligent than myself. But I can see the benefits of it. I mean, at the very least, putting young people together with other young people that they don't know in a place that they're not from or familiar with.

[00:41:02] I can see that having a positive impact. I mean, that for me was scouting when I was in it. I was put with other people my age, sometimes doing community service, sometimes just dicking around in the woods and lighting things on fire we shouldn't have. That's also community service. Right. To a point. To a point. To a point. To a point. There were some fires that almost got out of hand. Almost. But you learned to put them out. See?

[00:41:32] Community service. I'm sticking to it. Did learn to put the fires out when they got out of control. Yes. Would have been great had we done a little bit better preparation of our environment before the fires. But, you know, lessons were learned. No one died. I do think that that would be great for people. I don't know that I like the idea of forcing it on anyone.

[00:42:00] But, if you want to vote, you got to put some skin in the game. And therein lies the thing. You need to have your ass on the line a little bit. Yeah. Well, I mean, there was a time in this country where, like, you had to own property to be able to vote. And... I can understand the arguments against that. I can understand the arguments against that, too. But I also keep going back to this idea that, like, you have to have skin in the game. You have to have skin in the game.

[00:42:29] Because, you know what idea I really like that I heard recently? Finish up, then I'll go. Well, but here's my thing. You know the people who are the quickest to vote for new entitlement programs that burn the taxpayers? The people that don't pay a lot of money in taxes. You know who the first people are to vote to send young men and women to war? Women? The assholes who... No. The assholes who don't have to go to war themselves, don't have any family members who have to go to war,

[00:42:56] and aren't going to be directly affected by the decision to go to war. And, by the way, when I say vote for, I also mean the people that support those people actually doing the voting. You know who the people... You know who are the last people on Earth that advocate for going to war? People like me who've been there and realized that when you send a couple hundred thousand people into a hot zone, some of them are not going to come home. And that's a family shattered on the back of this.

[00:43:24] So while I'll be the first to admit that, there are circumstances under which I am like, absolutely, give me the button and I'll push it myself with a smile on my face. I'm also going to do so understanding the weight of the decision I'm making, which I would venture to say that at least half this country and probably 80% of those a-holes in Congress have no earthly idea of the weight of the decision they're making. No, they don't. Why on earth would they?

[00:43:50] Yeah, they have no reason to truly understand what they're doing. But I don't know. I can't remember where I heard it. It was on another podcast. It might have been one of Tim Kuhl's podcasts because I listened to him on occasion. And they were talking about selective service and how they should open it up to men, to women. And you should be required if you want to vote to sign up for selective service.

[00:44:19] There's an argument to be made there. Now, I kind of like that. And you know what? Maybe we do institute a draft, but it doesn't all have to be for the military. There's always a shortage of daycare workers. They do. Before and after school programs are always hard up for teachers. Guess what? Drafts coming around. Everybody that's signed up for it, guess what? If your name comes out of the hat, you're going to go through a thorough training and background procedure,

[00:44:48] and you're watching kids for the next two years. That is your service to the country. California means firefighters, like Raggle said. Guess what? If you are physically capable of doing the firefighter's job, we're going to train you and evaluate if you can be a firefighter. Hell, worst case, you can work the kitchen for the firefighters. Rosie the Riveter? Yeah, exactly. I mean, yes. Then we don't have to pay every 18 to 20-year-old on the government dole to do something,

[00:45:17] which is, let's be honest, there's going to be a lot of make work in that. Or we could use it to just be a, yeah, you know what? I'm going to throw my ante in the hat. Who knows? Maybe I get pulled for combat arms in the middle of a war. Maybe I get pulled for diaper duty. You don't know. But you're saying that I am willing to take responsibility for whatever the country needs. Yeah.

[00:45:44] And that whole issue about women having to sign up for selective service, there's not a version of reality where I want my daughter to have to sign up for selective service.

[00:45:59] But, but, there's also this part of me that's really hard up, like, how many, like, I've grown up my entire life listening to the, you know, the constant drumbeat of men and women are equal. Men and women are equal. Equal rights. Equal rights. Equal rights. Well, equal rights comes with equal responsibility. Equal rights.

[00:46:20] So, while I think if men have to sign up for selective service, so should women, I kind of don't like the idea of men having to sign up for selective service either. I don't, but I think that if we were going to put any barrier to entry before voting, it should be something like that. Yeah. Sorry. Got to put your name in the hat. If, if you want a voice in how the country is run, you got to put your name in the hat to risk defending it.

[00:46:51] And to Joe's point, I have a feral daughter. You do. She's going to be scary. Oh, look, I've already, I've already told, I've already told my wife one day, some poor little, some poor little teenage bastard is going to show up at the front door. And he's, hopefully, hopefully he makes it past me. And very respectfully says, Mr. Rabelais, I'm here to take out your daughter because I swear to Christ, if he shows up with a hat backwards and says, sup, bro, he ain't, he ain't going to make it to the point of asking my daughter out.

[00:47:19] I'm just going to slap the crap out and tell him to get off my property. But if he makes it past me, I'm just going to put my hand on his shoulder and say, good luck. Because that little girl has been raised for 12 years so far to not tolerate anybody's crap and she barely tolerates mine. So I'm just saying. All right. So we're going to get this cart back on the rails. Yeah, why not?

[00:47:49] I mean, it's a similar thing. You know, talking about the emergency on the border and deporting people. Brought up the cartels needing to be deported. Apparently the cartels have been getting into gunfights with Border Patrol this week, which is a bold move, Cotton, as I believe Trump was sending a few hundred or so Marines down to the border to assist Border Patrol.

[00:48:14] Dude, listen, I so you remember not five minutes ago we were talking about how like me and sending the military in harm's way and yada, yada, yada, yada. I'm going to tell you right here now you could J damn the freaking cartels headquarters or like you could do it from 30,000 feet. The sons of bitches would never get a shot off. They wouldn't even hear the bomb falling before their house blew up. True.

[00:48:40] And if you want to convince me that with our intelligence apparatus, we couldn't fare where every one of these guys is living, their brothers, their sisters, their cousins, their parents who they're screwing, their bankers, everybody. And just literally strip mine all of Mexico from one end to the other. Every every cartel headquarters all gone all at the same time. Bye. Well, we probably could, but it would start a war with Mexico because that's like their number one economy. Well, guess what?

[00:49:09] Number one piece of their economy. Guess what? Do that and then put a C-130 flying, put a couple C-130 or AC-130s just flying back and forth up and down the border. I dare anything to come over. Right. I am so a mile past tired of dealing with this nonsense because this is this is a reason. This is not a recent phenomena. No, it's not. It's been going on for 100 years. The cartels have been jumping the border, shooting Americans in on American soil, by the way.

[00:49:38] Not just Border Patrol agents, but farmers and ranchers that are close to the border. This has been going on for years, for decades, and I am sick to death of this idea that these freaking assholes get to come over the border with impunity, screw with our citizens in our own country on our soil.

[00:49:58] And we're expected to kowtow to the government that is in bed with the cartels and treat them like they're a legitimate government because they're freaking not. Well, at this point, the cartels do control the Mexican government. I mean, that's that's pretty clear whether or not they do it overtly. So. And this is a bit of conjecture. If the cartel controls the government.

[00:50:26] That means the cartel is the government of Mexico, which means Mexico. Is committing hostile foreign invasions of our southern border via the cartels. They're certainly not doing anything to stem it. Right. Right. I mean, maybe they are kind of the federal is. Rye. Some of them try. Some of them are horribly bribed. Or I'm assuming you've heard of Ed Calderon, right? Yes, I have.

[00:50:57] Anybody that hasn't. Anybody that hasn't. You should freaking YouTube anything that guy has ever talked it talked on. Dude knows his stuff. Well, he was a federali and he part of the reason he left Mexico was because of the corruption in the federali. So like I. I have a base principle that I apply in many facets of my life that goes something like I will not have rational conversations with irrational people. Sure.

[00:51:24] The split second you stop making sense or you stop behaving rationally. I am done trying to have a rational conversation with you. I'm either going to ignore you, shout you into a corner or break contact because I'm not. I'm no longer treating you like a rational person. I'm going to have a rational conversation with you or a respectful conversation. I'm going to deal with you in the way I have to, but I'm done playing nice.

[00:51:48] I am done having a rational conversation with a government that is in bed with either in bed with the cartels or so scared to death of them they're refusing to do what's right. So my position at this point is blow up all the cartel stuff, blow up all their houses, smash all their stuff on a rock. And if the government of Mexico says we're coming at you, then the next J-Dam goes through the presidential palace. Well, I don't have fun with that.

[00:52:16] Here's the thing is I don't think I'm not. I don't think much will happen either. I am not certain there would be any repercussions other than maybe some fallout in Tijuana. Nope. United Nations. There's probably going to be a lot of finger pointing and wagging into the United Nations. No, it's just.

[00:52:45] You want to take a wild guess how little I think of the United Nations? Oh, I know. Since we've gone down this road. Yeah, I know. I don't either. But here's the problem I have with just J-Damming everyone in the cartel. There are a lot of people that are down there that are working in cartel facilities that they are not there of their own accord. Now, what did we just get through saying about deporting millions of people? I get it. But I have.

[00:53:15] They do. But I have a very hard time justifying J-Damming people that have not done anything to us. Now. Okay. Tier one assets. What's that? Tier one assets. Oh, sure. You could. Or. Because they could literally. What we could just do is secure our borders. I mean, let's be realistic here. We are able to deploy a Burger King within 24 hours anywhere on the globe inside of a military base. Seriously. It's a container.

[00:53:44] They drive the semi right off the C-130 cargo. Super cargo. I mean, look, if we can do that on any continent within 24 hours, we can damn sure secure that border. I don't care how militarized it has to get. I really don't at this point. Militarize the whole goddamn thing. Put up a DMZ. Anybody that comes across there that tries to cross there without our permission. That's a hostile act. Okay.

[00:54:14] So the only the only otherwise I'm going to issue to that before we move on is what if. What if breaking the back of the cartels as invasive as it would be with all the screaming and yelling of the UN, with all the screaming and yelling of the world community, of which I give not a single tiny little piss about. Damn all y'all. Ain't nobody. Ain't none of them have deployed the first assets to try to help us out, secure our southern border.

[00:54:42] So as far as I'm concerned, if you ain't if it's it's the three F's, right? If you're not feeding, financing me or fornicating with me, I don't care what your opinion is. Well, that's how I am to the UN at this point. You're not feeding us. You're not finances. And we're done effing with you. So we're going to deal with this problem our way. And if you don't like it, then you should have been part of the solution, not part of the problem. You should have been leaning on Mexico, by the way, about the freaking human train that they had dumping illegal immigrants onto our southern border.

[00:55:10] But since nobody wants to get involved in that fight, now we got to deal with ourselves. So I guess my point of view is very simple. If we break the if we could break the back of the cartel and loosen their grip on the country of Mexico and the Mexican government. And there's a possible idealistic. There's a possibility that they actually let country manage to arrest control of itself back from the cartels.

[00:55:35] And we can make an argument that we were giving that country the the opportunity to improve the lives of their own citizens by rooting out this cancer that's being allowed to metastasize and grow. Is that not a better solution than just pure isolationist lock the border down and eff y'all y'all are our own problem? How did Afghanistan and Iraq turn out? Afghanistan, Iraq, we're not bordering our country.

[00:56:00] No, but we still went in and tried to remove a very terrible element in that country and nation build. And it went poorly. Yes, but there's a couple of problems with that. First of all, you have to separate Iraq and Afghanistan as much as it seems like they're very similar. They're kind of not. No, I totally understand why they are different.

[00:56:24] But what I'm saying is, is the U.S. military and the U.S. government is notoriously terrible at nation building and using war to nation build. Yes. Yeah, we succeeded with Germany and Japan. Kind of. Except I'm not advocating nation building. I'm literally talking about just wiping some dirt off the off our shoes and then telling the country of Mexico, get your crap together and don't come after don't come at us anymore or bad things will happen and let them nation build.

[00:56:51] I mean, you know, I I firmly believe in this might be super idealistic, might be very short sighted of me, but I truly believe that like one of the reasons why our country has the national personality that it does is because we've built so much of this ourselves. Sure. And I think that any attempt to nation build or like, you know, there there was this very clear idea as we entered Iraq that if we could just give the Iraqis like Levi's and, you know, American music, they'd be just like us.

[00:57:19] And I'm like, yeah, but you're you can't supplant the native culture they have because these are people that have been ruled by warlords and chieftains and dictators for multiple generations. The culture and religion don't allow for democracy. Exactly. So I don't know that the culture of Mexico is any different. The way it looks, you call it the Taliban, call it a cartel. They're really not that much different.

[00:57:47] The only it's tribal warlords with a different name. The only difference would be and I can't speak to this because I don't know. But the problem with the Taliban specifically was that a substantial portion of the country, and this was also in play in Iraq, saw the Taliban and the insurgency as like the home team. Like we were the invaders and the longer. So it's been stated, and I believe this just from having been in the country.

[00:58:13] But like if we had come into Iraq, we had deposed on, we had left. Then the Iraqis, the sentiment among the average Iraqi would not have viewed us as foreign invaders. But it's the fact that we stayed that caused a lot of the public sentiment to sway against us. And they began to see the insurgency as we're here fighting for you against the infidels. And the problem with Afghanistan was largely that the Taliban was not viewed as terrorists.

[00:58:42] They were viewed as like Catholics in this country. They're viewed as a religious group. So like when we went after them, we were going into another country and basically like shooting their version of shooting at priests, for God's sakes. Like the optics around what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan were never going to work. So I don't really see a difference in doing that same thing in Mexico.

[00:59:07] What I'm saying is that the only way it would be different would be if the average, the average Mexican viewed the cartel as a net bad. Do they? And if they view them as an, I can't speak to that. I don't know. That is the limit of my knowledge. I mean, they. Although you would think putting people in oil drums and bury them out in the desert, you know, would kind of like be a net bad. But I don't know. I don't know either. And but this is the problem.

[00:59:35] I this is the problem with force projecting into other countries. If you're not intending conquest. Is the optics are never going to be good. So then what do we do that was so different with Japan that we occupied for years? We didn't we didn't oppose their leadership. We allowed the emperor to stay on the throne. And that's probably one of the reasons why it worked out well. OK, so then we don't J.

[01:00:04] Damn the Mexican president. We just tell them, please don't let drug dealers take over your country again. I mean, I don't know, man. I just I don't. I I wish I could have that rose that rosy view of if we got rid of the bad, then good would be allowed to flourish there.

[01:00:28] My concern is that if we get rid of organized bad, you're just going to have disorganized bad leading to the exact same thing later. Maybe it delays it five or ten years. But I just don't think you can solve the problems in Mexico by killing people. If you could, the cartels would have solved it already. They kill an awful lot of people.

[01:00:56] Yeah, but the cartels kill people to maintain their power by scared. We would be doing the same. But it works for the cartel. OK, I was about to say, but works for the cartel. It can work for us, too. Like if you're going to say, if you're terrified of the white devil up north and you you stay on your side of the border, that sounds that sounds like it solves my problem. I mean, but that you made me go to a dark place all of a sudden. You're welcome. I just I I don't.

[01:01:25] I don't have perfect knowledge if I had perfect knowledge and I knew it was going to end up and well. Well, then, of course, you would do it. But a lot of times when you get rid of a power structure in a country, even an unofficial power structure in a country, things get a lot worse. Like it's pretty rare for you to get rid of a power structure in a country and have things turn out better. The CIA does it all the time.

[01:01:55] And it doesn't actually get better. It doesn't actually get better at all. They make everything worse. I know it was sarcasm, Nick. Yeah. Like, no, man, I just I can't get I cannot get behind that idea. I mean, look on your face was so priceless, though. So trusting the CIA, yes, even sarcastically trusting the CIA cannot compute with me. I saw this brief moment where you were like, is he being for real?

[01:02:24] I couldn't I couldn't process it. I'm very low on sleep and not enough caffeine for this level of sarcasm. But the I don't know, man, it's. It's an end. You're kind of making an ends justifies the means argument. And I don't like those because if you're taking immoral actions. They don't tend to lead to moral results.

[01:02:54] And I think I'm defending yourself, defending yourself is moral. Securing your property and your your people is moral. Fine. Yeah, man. We won't we won't J. Damn the cartels. I mean, I don't know, man. I mean, yes. Lockheed Martin would love for us to J. Damn all the cartels. They do need their stocks to go up more. I mean, yeah, if Trump's going to friggin like stop stops in the CIA to do regime changes. You know what?

[01:03:24] There's an idea. We have a whole arm of our of our our intelligence apparatus that excels in regime changes. Never mind. No J. Dams. I mean, yeah, you could send the CIA to deal with it, but then we're just going to get more drugs in the inner cities again. Again, more drugs. Again, again, again. How much more drugs can we import into the inner cities? I mean, given the fact that they were like flying in literal tons of cocaine.

[01:03:52] I mean, give the CIA an inch and they'll fuel in a mile long line of cocaine. I mean, no. So I like the idea of putting the CIA in Mexico even less than I like J. Damning the cartels. OK, so just just because you brought it up since we've started talking about the CIA. You're not like planning self harm or anything anytime soon, are you? OK, I actually quite like living.

[01:04:19] I do not have any dirt on the Clintons and I know nothing about Anthony Fauci. We just you know, sometimes you just have to you have to make those statements publicly in front of witnesses. Yeah, Joe's right. Winning and moral don't always go together. But I would like to try. I would like our country to attempt to do the moral thing. I mean, I think we are capable of doing it.

[01:04:45] And then if you do win, it's a better victory. I will. I will give you that. I'm just I'm just going to ask that you allow for the possibility that, you know, when we deployed when we deployed two portable sons on Japan and murdered millions of civilians, that was probably the lesser of two evils. Sure. And you can argue lesser of two evils all day long. But but it's still evil.

[01:05:13] Well, yeah, I don't think I'm the person to answer that question. I'm certainly not. And because of that, because I don't think that I am smart enough to answer that question correctly or even approaching correctly. That makes it a no for me. Yeah. And see, for me, it's not even a I don't think I'm smart enough to. My problem is that when whenever we get into like really.

[01:05:44] Hard conversations about like morality and war and everything else, I go I go right back to this really dark little place where I'm like, I'm not saying murdering civilians is cool. I'm just saying that at the end of the day, if I have to pick between like my countrymen and anybody else's countrymen, they're on the wrong. They're on the wrong end. Sure. And that's and that sounds really heartless. And it kind of is. No, it is.

[01:06:13] And we do need people to make that decision. Yeah. But it's also the perspective of a person who swore an oath to defend my country and my countrymen and uphold the Constitution. And I at the end of the day, I just don't care enough about. The collateral damage that would be caused, which is probably why I'm not the one that should be pointing the military at anybody, because that is ultimately going to always be my personality is like, did did they screw with my country?

[01:06:42] Did they point? You know, did they shoot at us? Did they bomb us? Did they do stupid stuff? I want them sent to Jesus next air. Please. And I can I can understand where you're coming from. I just think that we have not actually tried the moral solution first. We haven't tried any solution. Exactly.

[01:07:07] So I think that we could probably try the less evil solution first and see if that has an effect. And then because we can always fall back to J damming everyone. I mean, we're really good at that. So we could we'll keep that on the shelf. Let's try securing our border first. And if that doesn't work, J dams for all, I guess I you might as well try. OK. Last one.

[01:07:38] Restart of the WHO pullout. Like a 13 year old on prom night. Too late. Oh, Jesus. You're welcome. Anyway. No, like. I don't know someone. No one has yet to explain to me the downside of this. And let's go ahead and add NATO and the UN into all this. Like I know one.

[01:08:03] No one has yet to explain to me the downside of pulling ourselves out of these organizations of which we are overwhelmingly providing a majority of the funding for on the back of US taxpayers. And which, from my point of view, we don't really seem to reap much, if any, benefits from. It helps prop up the US petrodollar hegemony. That's the only upside. Which is well on its way to collapsing anyway. Oh, yeah.

[01:08:32] But that doesn't mean we should escalate it. I mean, I kind of like us being a world reserve currency and me being able to buy a smartphone for $1,000 instead of $2,700. The problem with that is there's so many problems with that. I know there are. I know.

[01:09:01] But that's really what it is. The big reason why people are freaking out about us pulling out of the WHO and theoretically pulling out of NATO, I don't think we would. It wouldn't really be pulling out of NATO. It would be collapsing NATO, which probably should be collapsed. I mean, there's some arguments to be said that NATO has outlived its usefulness and that it probably is at least a proximal cause of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Yeah, I mean, certainly.

[01:09:31] And I do not want to get into a half-hour-long geopolitical rant about the causes for World War I or the parallels to NATO versus the old Soviet bloc of the Cold War and all that. But suffice to say, at least from my perspective, my understanding, NATO was created to basically try to make it so that a third world war could not happen. Just like the United Nations, just like, what was it before that?

[01:10:01] The League of Nations. Yeah. We're batting a thousand so far, guys. And then along came Portable Deployable Suns. And that seems to have changed the game slightly because now no one can. Yeah. But the point is, is that like anybody that has one, nobody wants to start a war with because if one gets popped off, another gets popped off and then everybody pops them off and then bad things start happening. So.

[01:10:31] I have a theory about that. Huh? I have a theory about that. I don't think mutually assured destruction is a reality. Honestly, I question how many of those birds are sitting in those silos that would even fire if we tried to fire them off. Oh, the US, the US ones would. Ours? Anybody else's? Some would. I don't think that mutually assured destruction would actually work.

[01:11:00] I don't think that the country on the receiving end of a nuke would fire all of theirs. I mean, at the end of the day, you're talking about people that have to push the button to end the world. And that's that's a moral weight. I wouldn't do it. I've and I've had this discussion with, I would say, a large number of my friends. Yeah. You have a few too many beers. You're sitting by the campfire and somebody brings up World War Three. And well, would anybody here actually do it?

[01:11:30] I've yet to have somebody admit that, yes, they would retaliate fully with a full nuclear arsenal of another country. Yeah. Well, and, you know, you've probably heard me bring up a book called Unrestricted Warfare a couple of times. Yeah. For anybody that hasn't stumbled upon that little jewel, like Google that. You don't really need a VPN, but you should probably be using the one anyway. But Google that. Find the PDF copy of it. Read it.

[01:12:00] Let's just say that a couple of PLA colonels, you know, 30 years ago now, pretty well figured out that thermonuclear war was bad. So if they were going to screw with another country, they should probably do it in more indirect, clandestine ways. And as you read that book, if it starts to sound like current events, then. Yeah. Welcome. Welcome to my little my new version of idiocracy.

[01:12:28] You see, when I was younger, I would make people watch idiocracy. And if it scared the crap out of them, I was like, you're my people. Yes. You get it. You see it. You see it now. And if they thought it was a dumb movie, I was like, OK, I'm not going to take that one out of my Rolodex because you are you're one of the idiocracy people. So now. Problem. Yeah. And nowadays, my litmus test is unrestricted warfare because usually I recommend that book.

[01:12:57] And for the people that actually read it, I usually get one or two responses. I either get that would never work and add the Rolodex again. Or I get the the frothing terror at. Oh, my God. This sounds way too familiar when you realize this book was written in 1994. And I'm like, well, welcome. You've had your eyes open. Now you can't unsee it either. Yeah. You know, I.

[01:13:25] There's always been two big problems to me with thermonuclear war. One, the ground, if you win, is now useless to you for at least a while. So literally salt in the earth. And two, you are now everyone's enemy because you started thermonuclear war. So you've alienated all of your allies. You have united the planet against you. And you've made any potential gains moot.

[01:13:54] And you've killed off all the tax cattle you could have grabbed. I mean, let's let's be honest here. The biggest asset of any country is its population. And their productive enterprise. Yeah, I was going to say and its industrial capabilities or output. Right. Which by that measure, we don't have a lot. But I guess that's another. We have more than people think. Yeah, we have more than people think. Like. I mean, I'm part of it.

[01:14:25] True. Weaponized autism, right? You would not believe how accurate that is for for machinists in general. I've known a few. There's parallels. There's there's some neuro spice there. So is there anything else you want to chuck in here before we roll this one out? I mean, I feel like in another week we're going to have to find something else to talk about.

[01:14:50] Other than current events, because we could literally talk about this every week for the next at least six months and never run out of material. Wasn't there a possibility of getting Trek on to talk about his experience of the California wildfires? Yes. So I do need to reach out to him and check and see if we can get him in for next Thursday. That would be fun. A fiery and mostly peaceful podcast. Fiery and mostly peaceful would be a fun title.

[01:15:21] Nothing to do with riots. Everything to do with actual fire. Not this time, at least. Yeah. Well, so far. All right. Well, let's go ahead and punt this one out the door. We both have dinner and spouses to check on. And sorry, last minute comment came in.

[01:15:42] Raggle Fraggle earlier asked if I'd like him to put a bug in a podcaster's ear about Cypress Survivalists to help us promote the event. And yeah, I wholeheartedly would love that. Like whether it's just me, me and the wife. I mean, we're doing this. We would like it to be a successful first event. I don't have any illusions about the fact that it's probably going to be a kind of a small turnout because it's the first time we're ever doing this.

[01:16:09] But I'd really like to see this little venture. My wife and I have started growing to something really cool because we're only ever going to reach so many people doing this on the Internet. And I really feel like the principles of preparedness are just going to get more and more important as time goes on. Oh, they'll never not be important. Yeah. Natural disasters happen all the time. Yeah.

[01:16:37] And unnatural disasters and supernatural disasters. That's a supernatural disaster. I'll let you know when we get there. Good. Good. All right. Matter of Facts podcast going out the door. Good night, everybody. Take care of each other. Take care of yourself. Stay out of trouble and don't end up on the news. Bye, y'all. Later.