Well whiskey, come and take my pain, honey all right? Oh don't why think alone when you can drink it all In with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, Join your bartenders, Steve Hayward, John You, and the International Woman of Mystery, Lucretia. Where the laps napp It'll live it ain't you easy on the should taps, got a givvy and let that whiskey bloone.
Welcome everybody to another episode of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, recorded before a live studio audience. I don't know where those people will speed from because when the kresha is on the podcast, usually you're crying a baby.
Laws you too, though it's not the audience. The audience is cheering gets YouTube that are crying.
You may have noticed Steve Hayward got a boy, Steve whole that thing up. I love all right, Command Console the US Enterprise. It's original series.
It's a Roadie two. Oh yeah, well it's got all the sliders. I can you know, be myself somewhere and yeah, so it's and it's got all these crazy things that does you know?
Like, can I just say that we have unleashed a terror onto the podcast world.
Can I saying I'm actually in the only room in my house that is not torn up? Uh, just the secondary this This is mister Lucretia's office. If you look, you can see his I can't do it with that. I have a stationar camera. You can see all of his military stuff surround to get helmets and uh anyway,
that sort of thing. But I want to say that the disappointing thing to me I had to listen to some technology somebody talked the other day about how we have actually turned into permanent parts of our technology all of the sci fi things that we watched as kids, you know, and and I want to know why it is that out of all the things we got out of Star Trek, we never got that thing that that Scotty carried around was at Scotty doc what sorry, it's been years.
Bones, that was his name, Bones, And you know that he could just do this and and and diagnosed whatever was wrong with someone. That's what we need.
We don't need all that other crack. We need that that thing that diagnoses people. And that's the end of my technology discussion for today, Steve.
I believe it's called the medical tricorder.
But you know what, we have one of those.
We're pretty close to having it, actually.
Working on it.
Yeah maybe, I mean, I don't I think, Lucas, you're we're drinking. I'm drinking an Obon fourteen to I the Highland, which would be more acceptable to light. And she's got some red wine.
So and I know my whiskey's packed other than a bottle of jet. No, it's a wild turkey honey that I use for my uh my hot toddies when I have a cold. But mmmm, it's sweet. But I am drinking a San Filipo the Devil Brunaldo di Monticino. That's my translation from the Italian, which is from the lovely place of Siena that the three of us visited and had a wonderful time.
Right, so great, very good. And I'm in La and I'm going to be participating in a debate tomorrow at the Federal Society on on Birthright Citizenship at the Federal Society Western Chapters meeting at the Reagan Library, Riot. Well, I hope a great experience.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry you have to lose that debate tomorrow, John, but it's just the way it is when you went at the Supreme Court.
Who cares? But I'll be debating Elon Morman, a young professor. Oh yeah, so you're more from the University of Minnesota who has an article out arguing defending Trump's executive order from an originalist perspective. So it'll be a good debate. I'm sure it'll be on the Federal Society webs right.
And then your little litery eyed from being back doing out numbered on Fox yesterday? Was that just yesterday?
Yes, I was out numbered yesterday in New York. I got off the plane just a few little bit ago. And the fun part of it was that President Trump was having cabinet meeting right before. In fact, he came you know, went partially into our time, but that meant we gave the you know, immediate color feedback. It was like being a color commentator at a baseball game. Now, where did you commenting on it? Right after? Go ahead?
Well, where did you fly on this morning? Philadelphia or Newark?
And you know how many people are ahead of me in those terrible tsa lines, Oh zero zero, I went at nine. I showed up around ten am for twelve noon flakes. I didn't believe there were going to be lines, and I highly recommend is. I got tsa pre checked touchless. Did you know about this? Yes? Yeah, yes, they had their own lines and nobody's using them. So I just walked right up. There was literally no one in line. I walked right up to directly from getting onto Uber.
I walked unstopped till I got to the X ray machine. When I got repeatedly stopped and harassed, it was like Bill Clinton was working the machine, kneeling everybody up. Oh, it was outrageous. Well now, anyway, so that was my fun this morning.
Well maybe I should take that up first, John, instead of stead of the war for this reason is yes, okay, I mean what I heard this morning. First thing is that San Diego was a nightmare today. You know, lots of people calling in sick, super long lines. And then so you head Atlanta has been a nightmare. Other places in Houston, in New Orleans, but not Newark, not the Washington airports, although a curious thing. You know, Delta announced
publicly that they were pulling there. There's special access desk for members of Congress, which I thought was a nice little touch.
I might have to say, I've been flying all around this week, And so I did fly from Austin, same experience, walked directly from the car straight through to Thissa, touchless line and never I never signed it, but I had no line there. Flew into Baltimore Washington Airport, nobody was there, and then out of Newark it was fine, completely fine.
Well, this is what's making me suspicious is you would think, I think we would think that the number of people calling in sick or quitting would be pretty evenly distributed around the country. Instead, you're seeing you might call it hotspots. TSA is unionized. I am wondering if some of the sickouts are deliberately coordinated to put pressure on certain places but not other places. I mean, the last place they're gonna boycott is going to be Washington because it'll make
the politicians inconvenienced. But the other thing is, I mean, you know this, John, There's been no lines in San Francisco. Why because well you must know this, John, because you they have private they have privates. You have advertised every airport has the option to bypass the government TSA and hire a private contractor. They wear the same uniforms to do the same training and all the same procedures, but
it's a private company. And I'm sitting here thinking, if they really wanted to do a work stoppage slow down throughout the whole country, then Trump might pull a Ronald Reagan with the air traffic controllers and say, fine, I want all the airports to you know, forget these people don't come to work, sign up private contractors tomorrow, and that would be an ex signing up now.
No, no, no, no, Here's there's two things that First of all, can you honestly blame people who? I mean, they don't have huge bank accounts to rely on these TSA workers just so for a moment, Let's not pretend that they're doing something wrong when they call out, I'm sorry they worked for weeks, et cetera, et cetera.
I'm refusing. My experience is flying quite a bit.
Last week was I met up with one sort of surly TSA agent and who you know, pushed my bag in for a secondary thing. But after a poor woman with a little, tiny baby, he spent fifteen minutes feeling up the baby carrier for I don't God only knows what, but anyway, but that was it. Otherwise they were pleasant they were wonderful. I had no just like John, no problems with lines, but I wanted to say something about those private security people. Back to your comment about the union.
The head of the union for TSA, I guess whatever that means, said that when they had and they started doing articles about the private security forces, the civilian those not part of the government. He said, it's just terrible that they do this because these TSA agents are spend months and months and months in training, and after all, security is only a government function and only the government.
Can do it well.
And he just went on and on and on, and it was so stupid.
I thought, well, let this guy open his mouth, because everything he said made me think what I've always thought, which is we should get rid of TSA and you know, make them all private contractors. But anyway, and they're still getting paid because the contracts have already been paid. But what I don't understand, and what I want you guys to explain to me, is TSA, me go, ice and
border patrol were funded in the big beautiful Bill. None of this performative nonsense by the Democrats has any impact whatsoever on ice funding or border patrol.
And even today this is what I don't understand. Even today.
They didn't fund ice and border patrol in the what the Senate put forward, but they don't need it, so I'm not I just don't get it. Somebody explain it to me. I can don't get it. Maybe there's somebody else's.
I don't get it either. And I was wondering if we had an especially craven example of Republicans in the Senate caving and say, oh, let's kick the can down the road and we will limit current funding to the next sixty days, because that's apparently just a sixty d o'clock on what the Senate passed, and in other words, that there may have been I can't figure it out either. I haven't read the bill, because who knows, it's probably not available. I haven't read the bill, but it sounded
like nobody has. It sounded like there was a cave into the Democrats on the part of the Republicans and then they all left town, right. I don't know.
So.
Speaker Johnson, if you saw him, I caught a bit of him. He was really exercised about this, and he's normally very calm, cool and collected, and no, he was mad and he's really mad at the Senate and Senate Republicans, So good for him, I think.
So let's let's talk a little bit more about that, because that all just happened today. Last early this morning. The Senate did pass a bill to try to restore funding to the rest of the apartment, I think, except for ice and border patrol, though, as Lucasia just point out, those are already funded. And so that made it through the Senate, and then the Freedom Caucus I believe blocked it in the House and so it didn't pass. So
that's one development. But then the second one that just occurred is that President Trump has declared an emergency and has is re well I mean is I guess the official term, legal term is usually called something like reprogramming the fund, so he's moving it from one account to the TSA employee account to pay them, and that just happened today. So, actually, does it make sense for Trump to want to engage in these maneuvers to try to
keep TSA agents on the job. Doesn't this actually get him involved and get some of the blame now for the longer and longer TSA lines rather than the Democrats in Congress, where it belongs.
I have no idea. I mean, my question is, if if he could do that all along, why didn't he do it two three weeks ago to blunt the democrats leverage. And the only one possibility, not the only one possibility, is is he actually can't do this right? You know, it's all the budget restrictions and the way the money's regulated.
And I have no idea.
That'd be an omb question, and so maybe he won't get away with this. But and then you know, Musk offered to pay their salaries for a period, and the Frump administration as well, Actually you can't do that. We can't for whatever reason. I mean, so I don't understand what's going on. It seems very confusing and chaotic.
There's some kind of poison pill that's and I can't Unfortunately, having just my laptop, I can't open seventeen different windows to look for what I saw earlier as a kind of poison pill that just said something like ICE and DHS excuse me, Ice and Border Patrol are prevented from engaging in any activities. It wasn't quite that strong, but it was something similar to that, and I apologize, I
can't find it. So that may be part of the reason why at least the Freedom Caucus said we're not going to go along with this.
But I I don't know. I agree.
I think that the President is arguing that it's gone on for so long and things have gotten so bad that it isn't indeed a national emergency, which gives him the authority under the National Emergency Act to use other funds to pay those people.
That's my understanding of the legal argument there.
That's yeah, well, it's not the Maxtional Emergencies Act that gives the power. It has to be some statute within the appropriating statutes appropriating funds for the agency. But usually these agencies have this kind of reprogramming statute in the case of emergency. You might remember in the first term President Trump, after Congress refused to build the wall, he moved money from base construction within the Department of Defense's
budget to wall construction. And I wrote a piece because I looked at the reprogramming statute that applies to DoD and it did say that you can move money between military construction accounts. It was perfectly within the statute. I thought, if you declared a national emergency, okay, well, we are coming up on our first ad break, so please take a listen to our lawyer supporters. Maybe you'll even hear an ad for the Arch Deluxe when we come back. So I Stephen Linda the picture of me having the
Arch de Luxe in a Union station in Washington. I thought it wasn't bad. I mean, I didn't really see the difference between that and taking two double quarter pounders of cheese. I guess taking the bread off the top of one in the bottom of the other and just laughing two together to make it a sandwich, which I have done to the Sausagejagg McMuffin many times for breakfast.
I wonder if you had one too.
I had one. I had one.
I had them take the sauce off.
Of course I would in a thousand years eat some nasty sauce like that on anything. But it was still so just slimy, and it had these fried onion things on it that were just disgusting and ugh.
I ate maybe I was starving.
I had not eaten it was like two o'clock in the afternoon, and not eaten since six o'clock the day before. For I was starving, I said, okay, I'll give it a try. I can discuss you with John. It was awful, Clearly it was good.
I will tell you the meat was good.
It was good.
Lucretia, you are like your Claremont brad theren and sisters and your snobby food elitism. I can't stand it. You're just insulting the United States of America. What about you?
And I still have no I haven't had. I'll have one this week because I usually again at McDonald's stop at least once on my way back and forth down to Malibu. But you know, speaking of we've never told you John about what was the the burger for claire monsters in Claremont. It was the stuffed burger at Walters. And when you think about it's perfect Straussian burger because it had the cheese and grilled mushrooms cooked inside the center of the patty, so you see it's hidden from view. Oh,
it's a fantastic burger. John.
I'm not a snob.
I'll eat I'll eat a fish sandwich with no tartar sauce. Al eat a cheeseburger, just a cheeseburger because they don't put mayonnaise or they just put those little onions on it and the pickles.
And I'm fine with that.
I just that.
Disgusting sort of gooey greasy. No, no, it's not for me, it's not snobbish.
Let me also say that a friend of the podcast, Janiyardborough, an excellent political scientist Bowden. Yes, yes, who has written some very interesting books on Polko theory. I believe what you call her as Chaussian. Two guys, Is she part of the Secret Decoder Ring Club? Yes?
Well, she actually studied with Hannah Rant at the New School for Social Research.
Oh wow, Yeah, has been emailing. Yeah, she's been emailing with us about how she cooks a burger. So I propose that we have a Lucretia versus jean Yarborough off, okay, because she says she cooks a mean burger. And yeah, and we will. We will see which one is the most Straussian of them all. Very good. So let's turn now for our next topic, which is, of course, the Iran War. A lot of developments in the Iran War.
One.
President Trump has sent I believe, a fifteen point piece plan proposal to Tehran. Tehran claims that they're not negotiating with the United States on the other hand, President Trump said in a cabinet meeting on the record that the Iranians gave the United States ten ten tankers filled with oil to show their good faith in the negotiations and
that they could actually keep their promises. Nonetheless, President Trump, there doesn't seem to be any sign of genuine movement in their positions, and President Trump make clear in the Habinet meeting two days ago, the United States is demanding the end of the ballistic missile program, the end of support for terrorist groups, end of the nuclear weapons program,
and the attacks continue. The United States and Israel are still heavily bombing the nice is one thing I thought was significant, and then I'll ask you both about this. The Secretary Headseth said that the United States is flying the A ten ground attack aircraft and A patches at will over Iran without any threat of being shot down.
That A ten is a is a I believe it is propelled by propellers, flies really low, right, yeah, flies really low, and it's just designed to destroy, you know, shoot things with you know, with bullets, all right, Like it uses a rotary gun on the front nose of it, and it's you know, has a lot of armor in the bottom, but you would it would be easily shot
down if you had an effective air defense. And so he was telling you an example of just how much air superiority exists over Rod and that the Iranian air defenses and air force are no more. Nevertheless, do not know this from the coverage and the little liberal media. Steve had a post earlier this week on Substack of how the economists is saying the United States is losing the war. Yeah, and you've seen similar accounts in the New York Times, in the Washington Post and the Wall
Street Journal if the war does not go well. So Steve, why is this happening? Why does first do you think the war is going well? And then two, why is the liberal media seeming to suppress the genuine facts about how the war's going?
So look, I figured this out a week ago. I think I said it last week that you can tell that we're winning this war because the media says we're losing it. Right, it's a quagmire, right, you know, the default of the media is it's always Vietnam all over again. And you remember the Iraq War. The first three weeks it was terrible. Things are going badly, and then Bagdad fell very quickly. It was afterwards things went wrong, and
that's another story for another day. So they love that narrative, and so whatever the media is reporting, you can pretty much assume that the opposite is true. Now. I think Trump is giving off all these mixed signals, partly because that's his mo, but partly we've already seen him run this drill once. The fact that we're sending so many ground troops to the area means he's serious about seeing it through. And that might mean, you know, occupying carg Island,
which I think is checkmate for the Iranians. You won't have to take out their electrical grid and bomb their oil facilities. Although you know he's got done his hip pocket if he wants to. Ah, I will end with this historical analogy just to annoy Lucretia, because I have to. It's part of my job description, right. A lot of people are.
Drawing historical analogies, are annoying Lucretia, you.
Know, well, you know it's my favorite way. It's a so look a lot of people. I didn't think of this. I'm just following other people saying this is kind of a reverse of course, this is a reverse reversal of the Suez Crisis of nineteen fifty six, right where remember.
That I've seen that analogy ludicrous.
I don't think so. Well, no, here's why. Let me let me play it out for you, John. In that case you had France, Britain and Israel. There was once a time in living memory when Israel and France would lie with Israel to attack, in that case, Egypt over the Suez Canal, which they had an international right to do. So this was not a Nobody made the argument. They were, as they do about Trump now, that they were violating international law. And who stopped them? Well, our president Eisenhower.
Stopped them, Yeah, Dwight Eisenhower stopped.
Them right, quite forceful.
That's why it's a ridiculous analogy. No greater than us that can force us to stop.
Well, I'm coming to that point. But let's remember how serious an attack that was. It wasn't just Eisenhower saying stop, I don't approve. The US Treasury attacked the British Pound and the French frank as a way to make it clear that we really meant it. And look a lot
of people say that Eisenower, who I admire greatly. But he was mad because he was not in on the planning of it, and it was occurring six weeks before a midterm elector, no his own reelection, sorry, but the general election, and he thought it might hurt his reelection somehow. I don't know why. If that's actually true, and there are witnesses to this, I think that's not very good.
I did like what Churchill said about it. He was just out of office for a year at that point, but he commented to a friend that I would never have dared, and if I had dared, I certainly never would have dared.
Stop.
And I think that's Trump's disposition. That's just what I get from you ignore trying to parse out every inconsistency or contradiction or new thing. But it looks to me overall that he's going to see it through, and so I have confidence. And yeah, to your point, John, the Europeans, they can't attack the dollar quite the other is happening. The dollar is now becoming a refuge again.
Right.
The price of gold is falling because people would rather hold dollars right now than gold, which is odd for this kind of circumstance and.
You're investment strategy.
Don't worry. Look, it'll be uh uh, it will pay off in the long run. Because but what and the and the point is it's it is kind of the reverse.
I'm with Lacrete on this. This You're you're over analogizing. You're too taken by the parallels in history. This is very different. We know this is a this is this is the reason why there is the reason why they stopped the invasion as to as it is because Eisenhower was really worried about the Russians coming into mill easiness and excuse to come in. No one's going to stop us here. There's no greater power that can stop the
United States. And you said, there's no more powerful country is going to put financial pressure on us to stop you know, this is all part of this like the end of American Empire stuff there. And compare the United States to I've got though this was a piece of the Wall Street Journal that we can to compare the United States to Britain and France in the nineteen fifties. It's just like it's just it's just not even close. So I think Stevie, just you like the parallel of it.
But it really is really different.
No, I said it was a reverse. I said it was a reversal of it. John, you weren't listening as usual, Okay, I need to pour someone Oban out of that.
I would say to that is what you just said, John, I mean, I leave Steve's alone. What I always say to what you just said is that it's true enough that there was no other country that you know can make us do anything?
Shall we say?
But what is very much a worry, and what started this discussion, in my opinion, is the overwhelming push to discredit Trump, to discredit our activities in Iran, to discredit the idea that our and the Israeli efforts are making any any difference, To bring up the idea that no matter what, Iran will emerge victorious at the end of.
It because of A, B and C.
And that I think could in fact be what undermines the success of it, because you will have so many, especially Rhino weak, pathetic excuses for Republicans who will start looking at the polls, and I'm not sure the polls are all that accurate, but.
Be that as it may.
What's reported is that Trump is losing support. That the war is losing support. How could it not with these kinds of media reports. I do think that ultimately that could have a very serious, unhappy effect on what happens what we do to completely annihilate the Islamic Republic regime and bring about freedom and some kind of self governance for the the lovely Persian people, whom I you know, are in my prayers every day that they don't have
to live with this kind of horror. I confess to a student of mine, I just want to tell you yesterday that I realized that what it is is I would rather live in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany than under some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. And that's probably to some extent because you know, I'm no feminist, but I am a woman, and I don't I never. I my heart breaks for those women and lots of
people that live under that tyrannical regime. In many ways, I think it's much much worse than anything people ever had to suffer through in the Soviet Union.
So there there you have it.
But we have no we have no public Uh, there just isn't enough public support for the war. That's overcoming what's happening with the lamestream media. Isn't that what Rush Limbaugh used to call it the lame stree or.
Drive by media whatever.
Steve follow up with you and then ask for lucretius law. You mentioned that ground troops are now being sent to the region. You know, you could say, on the one hand, boy, the Iranians are really in a lot of trouble when the eighty second Airborne's on its way, But are you also worried that this actually might drag the administrative United States and administration into the kind of war it can't win if it's if it starts deploying groups boots on the ground, even in limited ways, like as you said,
taking KRG Island, which is the Iranian oil facility. Basically all the oil in Iran goes through that facility which is on the island, or if you listen to military experts, they saved in order to really secure the straight of Horror moves to stop people from shooting drones and cruise missiles across it, you would need to have ground troops on the post to hold the land and prevent people from infiltrating and shooting off missiles. At the oil tankers.
Does this worry you that we might right send ground, actually deployed ground shoots in this war.
Well, look, I'm no expert in these matters, but my general view is no, I'm not worried about it because I do think the current leadership at the Pentagon under President Trump, have learned from the mistakes of the past. We're not trying to, you know, win hearts and minds and all the silly stuff that goes back to Vietnam, or set up a whole new democratic republic like we tried in Iraq in Afghanistan. We're not bringing US aid,
We're not going to bring in a state department. We're just going to take some choke points or well I don't know if I think that was always overdone, but okay, so no, I mean, you know it could go wrong. But look, I mean the Iranians have Let's just pose we roll over a carg island. I'll bet we can do that pretty well, and I think Iran has almost no capacity to take it back. So now other things areund closer to the strait of hormones that may be more difficult.
I don't know.
I'd have to look at a map and think about it, and even then I wouldn't know enough to draw a conclusion.
So I have two quick cos I want you guys
to comment back. The first is I think I might have mentioned this in an earlier podcast, but it's very interesting to see the same people who are arguing against the Second Amendment, the proper understanding of the Second Amendment, which is to arm the people for uh, you know, revolting against their government when it becomes necessary, are also out there saying, oh, yeah, the Persian people can never secure their own freedom because they don't they have none
of the weapons. Just out of curiosity, why are we not? And maybe we are, God I hope we are, But why are we not engaging in the same kind of support for resistance activities inside of Iran? Why are we not if we know that there are these huge numbers of people that would are willing to rise up and defy you know, almost certain death to do so, why are we Is it just impossible for us to get those kinds of materials and so forth in there?
I just wonder that.
That's where I would go if I was if they put me in charge for a day, that would be my number help help the people help themselves in Iran.
That's what I know. I could see Lucretia flying a gigantic C seventeen over Iran throwing out.
Art one of those gunships that have all those you know, fifty caliber guns too.
Right, Why why would you stop at Iran? I think there's a lot of countries like to fly over and throw ar.
Oh no, oh, people are only listening. We'll see her right. Oh, look real quickly, John, we got it.
Well, we break just real quick, John, there are go ahead.
There are news reports today. Again the news mean is not going to know, but there are some news reports suggest that, and I've heard from credible people that the Israelis are working to get arms in place for people and but telling them to wait, and that there are things that are happening. We're not gonna learn about it from the medium. We're not going to know until it's already happening.
So with that, okay, okay, got it. We have to we have to go to a break. So we're going to go to a break now, and then when we come back with Kritia, we'll get in her last comments because I was planting her and he probably has better ways to deliver automatic weapons to the civilians, and then we have one or two more topics to talk about when we come back after these messages.
Sorry, it's too much fun. Okay, here we go, oh Hadley, it's just high Hadley.
And now we're We're lovely to see you, Hadley. Yeah, okay, and now we're back. Lucretia. Sorry to cut you off for our McDonald's ad breaks, but you had a comment before.
Just it's it's a very minor comment, uh that you know, we're told that that because the regime and in Iran has shut down communications and shut down the Internet and all those sorts of things. But my understanding of past conflicts, historical conflicts, I'm not going to be analogy girl tonight, but resistance measures and and and reporting out of places like Nazi Germany or even you know, go as far back as this, they.
Didn't have the Internet. Why are why is news coming out of Iran so sparse and so unreliable?
Do we not?
Are we not capable of having reporters who can actually report without the Internet? Are you guys following what I'm s.
Well, look, I don't think there are many Well, first of all, the European reporters you wouldn't trust. I don't think there are any American reporters there, or there might be CNN who we know have been badly compromised trying to report from Iraq twenty years ago and so forth. There is this internet channel by in Irani and who speaks perfect English. I forget the name of it now. Some of my pals and washing and this guy does these daily reports uploaded to YouTube by starlink. And you know,
that's some pretty good reporting. Our news media is not going to pick up on it because this guy isn't vetted like they say, and all the rest of that. But I also think that's not that unusual. I don't think we got I mean, you know, there was William Schreier in Germany the beginning and for the first, you know, many months of the war, but even his reporting was not actually done after the fact, right, So I don't think it's that unusual to not have good news sources.
Okay, all right, fair enough, Yeah, I'm just curious.
Let's move on to third topic. A happy moment. Steve Lucre and I will all be in Austin, Texas this week for a conference being sponsored by the Civitas Institute, the home of the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, and the Pacific Legal Foundation, on one dimension of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And this is actually I've always wondered about this. We're going to have a conference on what is the meaning of the
phrase pursuit of happiness? And so we'll have one panel with some friends like Lucas Morrell and Phil Muno's and Steve and Lucretia, and then we'll have a second panel primarily with public interest law groups about if you could figure out what pursuit of happiness meant, how would you implement it, how would you try to carry it out in litigation? And so let me ask you both, what does the pursuit of happiness mean? Other than getting a
new Star Trek soundboard and disrupting podcasts with it? Steve, what do you think the pursuit of happiness?
Well, it doesn't mean what a monster? That's right, though it's bad. You guys are going to steal it, take it from me, I'm sure, or smash it with a hammer next week when I bring it up. Look, well, it doesn't mean what is sort of the commonplace meaning today, which is whatever makes you happy, whatever floats your boat, or to use the sixties phrase of the sexual Revolution,
if it feels good, do it right. In other words, happiness and the pursuit of happiness in modern times has come to be the apotheosis of unlimited individual autonomy, going ultimately to defining your own meaning of existence, as some Supreme Court justice once said, or defining your own gender, right to pick any one of the one hundred and fifty seven or however many you're on the label of
the ketchup bottle. Now and the Founders, it's a long story, but in two sentences, the founder's view was a much more classical view, informed both by Jerusalem and Athens. I'll just put it that way. These were, you know, biblical, biblical people, but also people deeply learned in the Roman
and Greek traditions which connected happiness to virtue. And you know, there's some great scholars over the years who really dilated that, Like, oh, I'm blanking on the historian who was Leonard Levy's predecessor at Claremont before Lucretia and I were there. Uh, the guy who wrote Fame in the Founding Fathers. And I'm blanking on his name, which is Douglas. Thank you, right, Douglas. Adare okay, because.
I've read these things a few more decades more recently.
Than that's the problem and your brains. You haven't lost brains a couple ago. Okay. Anyway, And and there's other people have written well on this, and some of our give us examples.
What are examples of the pursuit of happiness in your view?
Then well, if if it's not rested on a foundation of virtue, it's not true happiness, right, And I not explain that would take a while, and I don't want to go on a while, but I just mention that you know, one of the persons on at the conference you neglected to mention who's going to talk about exactly this point is Brad Thompson from Clemson.
By the way, mistake.
Can I just add that you know we'd invited Carly Conklin from Missouri has written a very good book about the pursuit of happiness at the time of the Founding, and she's unable to come. And so we have two panels that normally the identitarians say are mannals because it's you know, six white guys.
I didn't even notice.
No, right, that's it was too bad that she couldn't come.
But I don't think Lucas Morele counts as a white guy.
But well, okay, oh this guy, I'm going to do.
The same thing. I still want to know the answer. What's an example of the pursuit of happiness? Because often you hear two things said about that phrase. One is they just mean property because right Locke says life liberty product or it's just rhetoric, is really life liberty? And then just this kind of rhetorical flourish, So give it some content for us. So Steve said, it's virtue, the pursuit of virtue.
So here's this is not the forum to do us this justice.
But I, first of all do agree with Steve that virtue is the thing that helps define what human happiness is the found excuse me, The ancients understood that human happiness would be discovered only when you understood fully what the telos of human was and that human beings were, and that was that, of course, was happiness. And remember, in ancient I'll just kind of try to limit it somewhat. In ancient Greek societies. The best regime were there was that regime which had laws that allowed.
At least some people to reach that happiness.
And the laws were proscriptive, not necessarily prescriptive. They told you what you were free to do, and not what you were prescribed from doing.
This is not fair.
But jumping ahead to the modern day, our founders who have inherited all of this, but they're now in the modern world. They're in the Christian world, the world changed by Christianity. Anyway, what pursuit of happiness means in the modern sense is not altogether different from what the ancients.
Believed that it was.
But it's pursued, shall we say, in the modern context. And what that means is that you live in a society that creates the conditions whereby you can pursue virtue and the happy life. Now that includes in many many ways, and in a kind of I guess you could say
crast sort of way, it includes the private property. Our founding fathers under stood that in the same way that Aristotle did, that you don't find happiness without the leisure and the property to make it happen, because you need to you need to study, you need to do these other things.
I'm not doing a good job of this.
But I'm confused because I don't think it's not.
John, let me start with what it's not.
It's not that you get to be a furry or a transsexual or have fourteen abortions.
No, no, no, I'm very serious. I'm trying to.
Use it just to show, well, liberals are silly. What does it mean?
It's very important to make that distinction.
It's either there is a standard by which happiness can be judged and that you get to that place by, as Steve put it, virtue, you get there by education, et cetera. Or you can say that happiness is simply idiosyncratic and that maybe in a world with no standards, in a world with no justice and a world with no understanding of good and evil, it really is, truly. If you want to be a furry or a mass murderer or whatever, if that's your version of happiness, then go for it.
If you want to be a soul, asking you what is an example of something that fits within the pursuit of happiness as you understand it, that.
The opportunity to live a good and decent life.
That's the pursuit of happiness, the idea, the opportunity to provide yourself with the means of subsistence, sufficient material wealth to make sure that you're.
Not struggling of virtues. I mean, I could see absolutely something about living a good life involving virtue, because you'd have to define what you mean by good life, and you could define it as having being a virtuous person. But doesn't seem to me that collecting the material needs for life is itself a virtue. That doesn't strike me as particularly virtuous. That's just Steve, go ahead, Yeah, because we had both me and Lucretia.
No, no, no, no, no, I'm agreeing with Lucretia. I'm shaking my head solely at you, John, because your state of confusion is well, your state of confusion is a natural state.
Confusion is being caused by the things you guys say.
Well, I'll say this, if you understood the point we were making, you would also understand and agree with natural laws. I mean, these problems you have are actually linked intimately. I will give you an example of you want one. My example is Winston Churchill. He was a very happy man. Why because he understood the at the root of all, this is the principle of teleology, that there is an intelligible end of human I won't say perfection. I mean
that's too theoretical. But the point is there's an approximation of human excellence, and the closer you draw to that, the happier person you are going to be. And that's not simply whatever floats your boat. It is it is in accordance with human nature and the affections of human nature. And that's very much what the founders believe. And today, you know, you can't say these kinds of things because you just can't write. It gets in the way of
someone's willfulness. So you know, pure wilfulness is categorically excluded from that understanding of happiness. And so that that's some of thosetinctions. And I can see you're still baffled and wishing you were.
I'm not. No, I'm not the I'm not denying. Churchill wasn't the happy fellow. Yeah, what was it other than the hed every morning for breakfast that made him so happy that for breakfast? What is it involved that involves virtue?
Well, by the way, you know, he read Aristotle's ethics sort of later in life, he read a lot of the classics as a young man on his own. He said, oh, I knew all that already. I mean, I actually think that's literally true. And towards the end of his life he was asked, well, he gave several answers to some very particular questions, like what year of you life would you want to live over again? He was like eighty eight.
He said, oh, nineteen forty the most stressful year of his life, and that's the year he would live over again. But then he had it. But actually I wouldn't want to let any of it over again. You know, I might make new or different mistakes. I might make different ones, I might not have made the ones I did. But this life has been great. But living at once is enough. That's a happy man.
And his unhappiness is unhappiness to the extent that he was unhappy, which I do think he was in the wilderness times, especially right you know, when when Hitler had risen to power, and you know, all of England was
in appeasement mode and all of that. He was unhappy because he he had enough understanding of human things and human nature and natural law John to know that England and perhaps the whole world was in grave, grave danger, and he was doing everything, ultimately everything he possibly could in his straightened conditions to try and make changes, and he was unable to do so for so long because he was outcast and so on.
That's why he was.
I will make two points as we draw this to a close, because we have to go to another commercial break. And then, yeah, but we have some of our last episodes.
We have some good comments on this very point respond to So.
Okay, so Steve is always giving us a hard time about staying on schedule and doing the breaks, and then this episode, Steve, you've been constantly running roughshot.
So not now I have the virtue of shutting you down.
I will. We'll take an ad break here and we will come back after hearing the virtues of eating the McDonald's hamburger with a big guy coke, which I think does involve the pursuit of happiness. And then when we come back, we will finish up with this topic and
go to our apple on bees. And I have two more questions, so coming back, okay, So coming back now, I had one point to make in response to what you have said, and I think some of the reader comments, which again I don't care what the readers say because I do it for the art. I do it for the art. John, I've never denied that I'm a slob. I am a snob, and I am a slob, but I am a snob and at least but I'm proud of it instead of trying to hide it like you guys.
Figured out No, no, that's a record scratch. Yeah, you could be confused, right, I'll have to work on that one.
So my, my, my, just my point was going I was gonna say, is it actually doesn't seem to me that virtue and happiness are necessarily correlated. In fact, they could be quite at odds. I could see a virtuous person being very unhappy, and you could think of a very happy person having little virtue. So the example I have in mine is Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln, I think is one of the most virtuous Americans, virtuous leaders we've
ever had. I think it was really unhappy because he had to fight a war that killed six hundred thousand Americans, he lost his son, and he had I mean, he just was I don't blame him for being unhappy, but I found him quite amazingly virtuous. And I think there's probably lots of happy people in the United States. I hope they're happy who don't really think about virtue very much or try to achieve it. They're just leading ordinary,
regular lives, but they're very happy in them. So Stevie wanted to I think you actually have a link between that and the reader comments and a response.
Well, look, I mean, so Lucretia mentioned, you know, Churchill in the thirties when he was at lowest ebb and that's the decade when he's especially associated what he called his black dog, his depression. Now that and his drinking that you alluded to John, both of those things are much overestimated. And I don't know why Churchill played him up as much as he did, but I mean, you get readily in the details are talked to Andrew Roberts,
both of those things were overstated. I think Lucretia that although he was well, first of all, it's hard to be happy in the sort of superficial sense when everybody around he was an idiot and when you know better. And I actually think in this case, right this goes back to your point about Lincoln is Yeah, but a lot of sadness is life, and a lot of burden of the awfulness of the war. But you know, this is a person who knew he was right, that he
had better command of things than others. And there's an intrinsic quality to that that does connect to virtue. And by the way, that if we say the ordinary, let's say, the middle class American who maybe only has a high school education, but as a good job and a family, those people are leading virtuous lives. They didn't have to think about it, they don't have to study aristotles ethics. But how did they sort of absorb that virtue of America? Well, because we used to teach it, Reagan said in his
famous farewell address. And you know nowadays that is harder and harder for people to absorb because so much of our culture is against it. So we can go on a long time about this John because.
He is hopeless.
But the rest of the country.
What you what you refuse to understand is the.
Refuse to understand may sound like I don't want to understand, when it's I take it back, I don't mean to your failure to explain, but go ahead.
So okay, But but one of the things that you don't acknowledge. I'll put it like that is the tragedy of human life and the tragedy of human affairs. And the Churchill example explains that. The Lincoln example explains that even more. And if he had been the kind of person who didn't understand that greatness is often accompanied with those kind of unspeakable tragedies, whether they're you know, personal or you know, the responsibility for literally hundreds of thousands
of people. He understood that perfectly well. And of course that's going to be a sobering and even often depressing sort of reality. But human affairs are in fact tragic, and what you have to do, and part of virtue is understanding the tragedy of human life, understanding how much good you can do in any situation, and how much evil you can avoid, and whether or not you are the person who can actually affect that good or prevent that evil. Those things are the highest sort of human aspirations.
That's really the definition of the highest human virtue. Can you be that person who leads numerous persons to a better place and prevents the least amount of evil in doing so, especially in the in the tragedy rolling of human affairs.
That really does not sound like the pursuit of happiness to me. I'm sorry. So let's come to one last tidbit that Steve wanted to discuss before we left for the night. And he wanted to talk about the closing of a website called The Liberal Patriot. And well, it may not go noticed by very many in the media universe. Steve thinks it has much greater significance than people appreciate.
Yeah, and I think I think Lucretia is also fond of this site, and she may or may not be enthusiastic about why. I think it's deeply important. So look, it's this little, yeah, little substance, I say little. It's very popular and a big following. The Liberal Patriots, started by John Halpin used to be at the Center for American Progress and Rui Tsera also used to be at
the Center for American Progress. They are I would say, old reform liberals, kind of people you trace back to, say Arthurs Lessinger or Adlie Stevenson or even Hubert Humphrey. They say they're progressives, but I think small p progressives in a common sense sort of way. But they I know Ruy left the Center for American Progress several years ago because he couldn't stand it anymore. And and there the point is the Liberal patriot was by the way,
just think of the name they're for Patriotism. That marks them out right away as an outlier on the left. Second most of their postings and they post our friend Henry Olsen, who's no you know, he's a conservative. They are very critical of what progressives have done to the
Democratic Party. And what I'm thinking is this is a milestone of and by the way, I should just say that, you know, they said, gosh, we've been trying this and all we get is a lot of blowback from people on the left, and you know, no one's supporting us financially, which I'm kind of surprised to hear that. But the point is is that this is another marker that the old reform liberal tradition, which we would argue with the
particulars all day long, is now dead. And I think about you know, Lionel Trilling's famous book in nineteen fifty was saying, liberals, you know, we're really watching things. We need to think more seriously about our cliches. And you had the New Republic magazine in the eighties and nineties when Marty Parrotts owned it, which was very self critical, and you had so many people who worked there who
ended up moving to the right, like Charles Crowdthammer. Partisan Review Magazine began as a Stalinist magazine in the thirties, broke with Stalin and it folded around two thousand and six. But by that time most of their you know, people who founded who were still alive, had either moved to center right or all the way to the right, like William Barrett forgotten names now, Philip rov Delmore Schwart. It was a literary magazine, but very much critical of wrote
ideological leftism, and often very interesting reading. Daniel Bell published there a lot. For example, John, you know we've talked about before, and you know, the New Republic has gone. The Democratic Leadership Council, that was, you know, an effort to resist the worst excesses of progressivism. It has not, and that you know, they really elected Bill Clinton to a lot of extent right. And this little thing was
just a journalistic enterprise, always worth reading. Lucreatia would tell me, gosh, I like this article, right, and I thought, well, we're making some right, and it's just you know, and this just came out of the blue here Friday morning. Yeah, the Liberal Patriot is signing off and we're you know, giving it up. And I thought, that's really unfortunate. I hope those two guys will steep keep writing and talking and I think they're great, and I'm sorry to see this news.
And my guess.
I was a little snobbish to Steve when he wrote back and say maybe they'll get here or there, and maybe that we could get them here. I said, it seems to me that it's actually the money issue that's the most important. And that was that was that was probably the wrong attitude for me to take, because these guys are probably not.
Professors or you know, administrators or whatever. We are, all the three of us. I'll have jobs that pay us.
And if you're making your money from uh, you know, just from this substack thing and not enough money is coming in, then and then I do apologize for, you know, we giving them mercenary motivation.
There's plenty of money to be made in substack. You can buy special effects, you can, but but.
I am not inclined to be a lot of people like me would who read them are maybe not always thrilled with what they write, not not so much to read to share or Henry of course, or a few others, but some of them are pretty far to the left, and I would think twice about giving my money to them, or you know, I just think twice about giving my money to anybody, because everybody's asking for it.
I can't read it all anyway, so.
You know, that's probably so they're in this weird place where they're not going to get conservative money, and they're definitely not going to get leftist money, because they really are the best voice out there with the Democrats, ultimate good in mind, giving them advice about what they need
to do. That's what they're I mean, they were the ones who started, even before Steve did, sort of undercutting this nonsense that came out of Democrats about affordability, right, remember that, Steve, I mean that, you know, and of course bringing on Henry and his brilliant analysis of so many things. It's what But I think Steve's point is that the fact that there cannot be a center left critic, set of critics or critical opinion pieces about the left
about the Democratic Party. Here's what you need to do here's where you need to be thinking. Maybe this nonsense about always you know, taking the farthest crazy pro trans position or that you know they would they would come out and say this is why you shouldn't do that. And that voice is going to be gone. And we talk about the polarization of our politics. I think the loss of the liberal patriots.
Going to make it worse.
I mean, I bet I can really do.
I don't think there's another voice like that.
I can just imagine the hate mail they got and that probably outnumbered their you know, fans.
Like that, and that's going to be depressing, absolutely right, not really, but maybe very virtuous in the pursuit of.
Well not really, I mean, you should know, think of a better way to end.
Our bark? Would me thinking you guys were a well chosen witnesses.
So you've got some Babylon b Just remember this one, John, forty Knights and Acts forty nine states in act legislation banning immigrants from California.
That includes you.
John, I'm already I already got out.
Okay, this is another one you'll appreciate based on your comment earlier. SA agent keeps skills sharp by groping mannequin at home.
Took you a second.
Oh my gosh, Trump rags oil never worth this much under Biden.
That's not quite right, but never mind.
Yeah, yeah, Olympics bans all balls from women's sports.
Say to the audience that I did, you know, want to talk about the IOC ruling, but we just ran out of time.
Yeah, oh that's right, I forgot. We didn't talk about it.
Randomized negotiating with Trump as all its leaders are dead. You know, that's not even quite funny. But guy who if you followed this little bit of news, guy who pushed over Reacher's motorcycle announced his plan to shoot John Wicks doll.
Yeah, I did not know what that. I mean, I don't I know the shows, but I don't know what to Well.
You have to but yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll have to look it up. You'll have to look it up.
Soldiers. I liked this one, even though I don't. You know, you'll get it. Soldiers issued crocs so Trump can say he didn't put troops on the boots.
Very good.
Last wait, wait, another massive fraud ring exposed at DC old folks home and it's the Capitol Building.
All right, Well, always drink your whiskey meat, buy more books, and Steve, have you figured out a closing that doesn't involve strange guttural noises coming out of this new soundboard that you've bought.
I don't. It took me a while to figure this thing out, how to link it up with the substack and all the rest of that, and hopefully this is going to turn out well. So I don't I meant to as part.
Of my creatures by wearing a forces helmet there.
Well, let me just say we didn't. Really, we did a really botch We did a botch job. About the conference this week. It's on April second in Austin. At it starts at noon. There's a lunch and keynote address, the keynotes from Jason Riley of The Wall Street Journal, and then the two panels and the adjourned for a cocktail reception at four thirty. The three of us will be there. Please come if you can. We'll sign books
or baseball caps or whatever. And I don't. I will put the low cation and all the rest of that, so you can RSVP if you want to come. We'd love to see you if you're in the area. So Austin noon April, which is Thursday, and it's called America two fifty Liberty Law and the Pursuit of Happiness, and you know it will be fun. Oh, we're going to tape a hopefully an episode the three of us in person along with Phil Munos is going to be our special guest slash victim. So that's the news.
And tell them what we're going to be doing the next week because it's actually kind of fun.
Oh well, we'll do that next week, I know.
But I want to give people, Well, the three Whiskey Happy Hour has has arrived, and we've actually been asked to do a command performance. And I'll concede to the gentleman here and not tell the details about it till next week.
But I do want to tell Ben, Ben, I'm a great admirer of Churchill, but I don't drink anything he drank.
He'll understand. Okay, I don't know, Ben, But okay, Well that brings it to a close. And thanks every much for thanks everyone for joining us, and see you next week. They can do them.
Final p I can you know, I want to know where the booze are.
I'm gonna get him for a new week. Okay, just having too much fun.
Bye everybody, any chancel circumstance to try.
To muttle through it.
Ricochet. Join the conversation.