This episode was not take before a live audience, but we're going to fake it well, whiskey, come and take my pain, honey all right? 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 lapped it up. It'll live. It ain't easy on the show taps, gotta give me
and let that whiskey clone. It's the Three Whiskey Happy Hour, the podcast where both our whiskey and our opinions are served neat and always at least any proof, if not much higher. And this week we had the band back together again with John in Philadelphia. Hi John, how are you?
Hey?
God?
John?
Hey guys, and you know, did you get your stuff from the University of Tulsa.
It arrived a humongous bat. I've got my Tulsa glass right now, and I made.
The mistake of taking my Tulsa glass to work to show it off, and now I don't have a glass to drink my whiskey out of.
I'm unboxing a brand new bottle of lafreug for tonight and needless to say, Lucretia is here from her undisclosed, heavily fortified bunker in the desert southwest. At least you can tell us what you're drinking, Lucretia. I can.
I'm drinking the Frank August that was the lovely gift from our friends in Tulsa, because it's the only whiskey bottle that's not packed away. I will be unpacking my kitchen and the whiskey bottles and the rest of the bar this weekend because the kitchen is done, but not the library. So but in the meantime, I don't have any whiskey other than the one I just got in the mail, so, and I don't have a glass. I'm having to drink it in this but I think it
tastes the same. We'll see. Ahh okay, and all right, Pellegrino.
So John, I thought rather than do the usual McDonald's and burger stuff. Although actually I'm sorry, John, you did send us a note today saying you tried someplace new in Texas that you think, yeah, a worthy burger place. So briefly, oh yeah, Pete Terry's. Has anyone been to Pete Terry's it's the Austin based chain. You go on and it kind of looks like it looks like In and Out. It's from the nineteen fifties. But I thought it was a lot better than it.
In and Out don't kill me, but you have angus beef and the and the Actually, the French fries are skinny McDonald's type fries with the skin on the very ends, and that's way better. The In and Out fries are disappointing. They're like they are batter fries, and so it was great. Plus I didn't get it. But they also have a chicken burger, which I have to get. That's the concession for people need to eat healthy, and they milkshakes with like fudge in them.
I don't know.
I think it gives In and Out a run for its money. Plus I have to say Austin has several In and Outs and there are never any lines in them, well, no lines that they dry. I threw no lines inside the store. Texans are rejecting the California meat virus.
So you know what they call people who eat chicken burgers in Texas? We call them vegans? Head right? All right? John? I did think in lieu of extensive burger treatment, because you do that every week. I thought it'd be interesting to hear from you an account of the debate you had today. I thought you were going to be outnumbered on Fox, but no, instead you were out numbered at where the National Constitution Center.
No, this was even better. I did a debate today at the American Philosophical Society, oh right, which was established by Benjamin Franklin, I think in the seventeen fifties, maybe even earlier, and it's filled with basically scientists and other scholars, a lot of famous people know Bell Laureates, things like that. And I did a debate with a professor, a political scientist, one of you guys named Roger Smith, who used to be at Yale and is now at Penn, who I
consider a moderate, and we did a debate. We held a debate on will democratic will constitutional democracy survive in the United States, And it was I was almost as if I think I was sent as an ambassador from conservatism to explain the strange cultures and ways of my land to think people who basically think experts should run everything. And there was shock, outrage, even defying and skepticism from
the crowd. When I said that the progressive era of expert government insulated from politics was coming to an end, whereupon one of the people on the panel said, experts should run all policy. If experts don't do it, who will. We can't have politics running policy. It was just right out of the Woodrow Wilson playbook. It was so charming.
And I said, do you think after the political disorders were living through that the answer will be give even more power to independent experts and give them more authority over our lives. No, it'll be the opposite somehow, But we haven't figured out what that world's going to look like yet.
Yeah. So Roger Smith, I mean, I know he's a big name. I've never paid much attention to him. I guess maybe because he is in some ways a moderate in the academy. So he never either offended me or I thought was very interesting. He was president of the APSA about ten years ago, and they usually pick moderates or sort of people of big name brands. On the other hand, John, at least at one point in life
he was to the right of you. Because I discovered that he wrote a book co authored with our friend Peter Schuck called Here's the title Citizenship without Consent illegal Aliens and the American Polity nineteen eighty five. So but still, you couldn't use illegal aliens in the book title today
and not be sent to the campus gulag. But the other thing I thought was it he argues that, well, he doesn't come down on the legal argument about whether the fourteenth Amendment should guarantee birthright citizenship, but he says Congress should step in and say, no, we should restrict who gets citizenship just because you're born to illegal immigrants who are residing here.
Ed.
Why does he get credit for that? I've been telling John that since we started this debate.
Well, no, the whole point was is that idea you know here he said it in nineteen eighty five, but no one noted.
Well, I wonder if he's did this come up at all today? John? Probably not.
No, it did not. I'm sure he was glad for that. I mean, I could have mentioned it, right, But his argument was that he was disturbed by the rise of the MAGA right and he somehow thought the solution would be defined common ground in enforcing the equality provisions of the Reconstruction Amendments. And I just thought that was, and I said, why do you think the troubles we're living
through our failure to have common ground? To me, the Constitution just establishes the boundaries for a political conflict, doesn't expect us to have common ground. I think common ground is usually what people say when they're losing that they would like to have common ground, but the people who are winning is a way to slow down. But either that.
Or it's defined, especially by the left, as common ground is whenever you agree with me, then we have common ground.
Yes, of course, Yeah that's right.
Yeah, that's why Lucretia and Steve never have common ground with me.
Because you never agree with the right way of.
Looking at frames.
See.
Yeah, So by the way, I mean this is nice.
By the way, if you guys haven't tried yours, just a yeah, it's quality.
I had some yesterday because it just arrived yesterday, So I broke it out open right away. Uh so, John, I hope you said what people said, you know, if not the experts, who should run the country, Because the answer is, I don't know. The people like it says the Constitute, what acquaint idea?
They would have tossed your ass right out onto the we wouldn't even made it into the building. Come on, it was a beautiful Greco Roman marble palace right next to Independence Hall, and which was also amazing right across. This is such a Philadelphia thing to do. We've preserved the Second Bank of the United States is original building which Andrew right the Second Bank which Andrew Jackson destroyed.
And so I said to them, you guys, I actually said, you guys were going to relive what happened right across the street at the Second Bank where Andrew Jackson came along and destroyed this elitist institution. And we didn't have another federal reserve by for one hundred years, for eighty years. And they, I don't think they just don't think this is possible. They really said, if the experts don't make policy, who's going to make it? Then they laughed at me.
Couldn't you use Lincoln's argument against them? You know his uh the fragment that you know, if a comes along, it says that, uh, you know, you should be my slave because your skin is lighter than mine. You should be my slave because you're dumber than me. That's not how he puts it. That's my way of putting it, of course, But anyway, my point would be to these smart ass eletes, a way, if somebody comes along who's better educated and more elite than you are, they should
rule over you without any consent on your part. Do you ever make that argument?
They know they would, because I'm sure they would say yes, and that person, I'm sure they wouldn't. I'm sure you wouldn't know this. They have such blind faith in science to solve as a way to solve all policy problems.
They really really and we saw how well that worked out in COVID. And you know, blind faith in science. As long as it's con a system of climate change, as long as it's consistent with exactly our political views and our political preferences, then we really like science. But if it doesn't, if it doesn't conform with that, we might not like it so much.
Yeah, it is funny. It is funny how often what the science says coincides with the political views and interest of the bureaucracy.
Right there you go, And when it turns out science doesn't really say that after.
All, by the way, I mean speaking of Second Bank. And then we're going to take our first break real quick news today you probably heard, is that the Justice Department is dropping its investigation into FED Chairman Powell. I was thought I was lost. Yeah, I was thought that was an air adventure for a bunch of reasons that I won't delay us with. But also big news today you probably haven't heard. I didn't know this was happening. But a ballot measure to require voter ID in California
has qualified for the November ballot. Wow, this, I think it might too. Right. It'll depend on.
A lot of seventy cent in favor of those.
Yeah, I mean, even in California, I think so that will be interesting.
And the problem is is that you won't have to have voter ID to vote for that ballot measure, and that could be the problem.
All Right, we're gonna go to our first quick ad break and then we'll be right back. Everybody, don't go away, all right. Our first subject today is move over Trump derangement syndrome and make way for Thomas derangement syndrome. I refer a course to the reaction to Justice Thomas's terrific speech last week in Austin. You were there present for it, John uh and the reaction to it just shows me how sensitive the left is to any criticism of their
progressive project. Because Thomas had part of a speech, and there are many parts that are worthy of note, I think, but part of it was a ringing attack on what we were just talking about, the cult of expertise and a progressivism that sought to replace the regime of the founders with the regime of experts. So I don't know if you're following anything reaction, but over to you guys.
Let me say first, this is not what I expected to say. But Erwin, our good friend, Erwin Schimrinski, came out on Scotis blog and said it was a wrongheaded attack on progressivism. I did too, it's a Scotis blog, and so let's see. The problem is that what what Thomas is doing is failing to unite the country by attacking progressivism. And it's wrong to think of Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini as progressives in any definition of that term. Because obviously Erwin doesn't understand I was going to say
a bad word anything anyway. I just thought i'd lead with that, because that's a new one. We saw Robert Reich any stupidity, you know, we saw Paul Waldman and his stupidity. But I think Erin might take the case on this one, you know that.
I mean, I don't know. Maybe the one by Ludig was the most embarrassing for its settleness, So you know there's a moment to address the just I mean, Linda Laura Ingram attacked him viciously on fuck but I heard barely too where she said, here was a guy, Judge Ludig, who was, you know, one of Thomas's best friends, a conservative appellate judge didn't get the Supreme Court, didn't get the he interviewed for the Chief Justice ship, lost to roberts Quit, then became a lawyer for Boeing, and then
after January sixth has been attacking Trump. But now he attacks his friend, former French Thomas, and his argument goes like this. It says progressives couldn't possibly be against a declaration because Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration and Thomas Jefferson
was the original progressive. And then he said it couldn't be that because these other Democrats also could So there I have praised the declaration like Franklin Roosevelt, So there couldn't possibly be a conflict between progressivism and now it's just it was just so wrongheaded because I think actually he mentions Hugo black in there, who I'm not sure if he was a progressive, but I remember he was
in the KKK before he was a senator. But the idea that Thomas Jefferson has anything to do with progressivism, which arises about one hundred years later, it just it's just so it's just just sadly non rigorous. It's just sloppy a way to attack this idea that progressivism and
the Declaration had are actually the same thing. I thought that was actually just embarrassing, Uh, just embarrassing logic not to mention the kind of stabbing your old friends in the back because you're so upset about Trump.
And it wasn't Trump who failed to nominate him to the Supreme Court, did he just sort of There seems to be a kind of pattern about people who should have been nominated to this who they think should have been nominated to the Supreme Court, and then aren't, and they just seem to get bitter and stupid. And you know, Gorsich is another example of that, not necessarily in the Gorsig Sorry, the other guy, Garland I always say the wrong one. I apologize, Garland, No, you probably don't. I
do know the difference. I just get the names wrong. But you know the I don't. There's nine justices of the Court and literally hundreds of people who could be considered qualified at any given time for any kind of opening, right, I mean, that's not an unfair thing to say, right, Why this bitterness that seems to creep out from some people who are so devastated once they don't get that nomination that I mean, even Laurence Tribe. I think you could say that about but I won't go that far.
That takes us too far field. One thing I missed it mention to you. It goes along though with what you were saying about Luddig. And that's from our again, from our good friend Irwin, who says that, you know, first of all, Thomas doesn't understand what progressivism is because he calls Wilson a progressive. And Wilson well may have been a progressive, but he was you know, totally totally uh you know, a racist and a bigot, and that for that makes him not a progressive.
So yeah, right, the uh, yes, oh, there's a time to say about this, so one is again the left is very sensitive when you draw connections on the level of principle and philosophy to the totalitarians of the twentieth century. On the other hand, I did post this on substack the other day. A history a book by a history
professor at Yale from just a few years ago. Ti title Hitler's American Model, United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law, and the book explains how from minecomf on, a lot of the Nazis were looking at American race laws put in place by democrats, let us remember, and certain aspects of progressive thought right, and so no, you can see why they're so sensitive about this, because it's
a weak point for them. There was this odd part in Luni's article where he said, Wilson's not the It's similar to Urbin's point, Wilson's not the progressive progressive as it really originates with Teddy Roosevelt. And I thought this is a wrong and a historical and stupid and b why is he doing that deflection. I think there's this equivocation among liberals on the one hand, say, as Irwin did,
Wilson's a racist. But on the other hand, if you tag him with being the premier theorist of progressivism in the administrative state, along with people like John Burgess, who nobody's heard of except Wirdo's like Hey and other legal theorists of the time. Right, Yes, they want to exonerate it and make it bipartisan again, so they're off the hook for this disaster of progressivism in the last one hundred years. So the interesting little thing that slipped by I think, I.
Mean, it's just a historical to claim that Woodrow Wilson's not a progressive. I mean, you go back and you read the history of the period, and he's he's the chief, He's the theorist in charge of progressivism.
And I think he is. Forgive me for this, but I think that the oversimplified way to tie together the racism of a Woodrow Wilson to the identity politics of progressives today really is back to what John was saying about his earlier about his conversation with Rogers Smith, that what ultimately what it comes down to is it elites want the power to remake society and the image they think they should be it should be remade, and early progressives sought, let's get rid of the undesirables, and later
progressives say, let's use the undesirables to of advance our own elite interests, in our own elite power. And there's really there, you know, And there's certainly no side of progressives that really wants what's best for those formerly undesirable people. They just want to use them to their advantage. And so it's it's just a matter of, you know's what's convenient at the time. The same theory holds true either way.
I mean, the other thing is you got to if you read the speech more carefully. It's not just Woodrow Wilson who's identified. He's just some, but it talks about John Dewey, who also says I think even worse things about the American people than Wilson does. And then you know your guy's favorite justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, the author of Buck versus Bell, you know, one of the great
progressive justices. They don't even try to pretend he's not a progressive or that he loved the Declaration, because he basically thinks this natural rights stuff is a bunch of whoy and he he's all in favor of right, enlightened, rational social policy, and.
You may know this to natural rights. Teddy Roosevelt later greatly regretted having appointed Holmes to the court. And I don't know what to make of that, except that.
I would have seen that. I would have thought they said of all the things the same way.
Look.
Sorry, I was just going to say, I'd love to have somebody who really understood this better than I do explain to me if the way to understand Teddy Roosevelt really is what. Let me put it like this, when you read a textbook account of who the progressives are and why they are all against the you know, concentration of power in monopolies, and they're you know so, so that's that part of it is definitely what Teddy Roosevelt
was all about. That's where progressivism gets its start. But the theoretical parts of the political parts of the progressivism take a very ugly turn very early on. And I don't think my understanding. I'm not an expert on Teddy Roosevelt. Although I admire him in many ways, I don't think he ever really bought into that part of it, or am I wrong?
Uh, Well, it's a mixed bag. And to sort that out, we'll have to have gene Yarborough on sometime.
Yeah.
Great, Yeah, she's the expert on this, her books on I forget the title of her great book on Wilson. Sorry, Roosevelt, but we want to take another quick break and come back with more on the declaration.
Let it let it know, go the passing. She's also a great Hamburger cook. Apparently we need to have her, yes and play her ware.
Let me try and get her out here next fall. So stay tuned for all that, but we'll be back. Listeners. Don't go away. Hey, you're listening to the three Whiskey Happy Hour. So, John, you have once again thrown a curveball at all of us by writing a piece on executive power as it's embedded or implied you think in the Declaration of Independence. I think I can make this out. But give us a quick summary and then we'll see if it makes any sense.
No, all you Claire monsters, you guys can't hit the curveball. You guys can't hit breaking balls. You only go for the fastballs, and you guys are always swinging for the fences, right, so you're like the modern Major League baseball You're always striking out. And then you're getting the occasional homer and you think that's a baseball game, but actually wants some singles,
doubles and triples too. So my argument here is that if you listen to common political rhetoric, they often say the founders are against executive power, they're against presidents, see e g. The Declaration of Independence. Right, So I don't think actually the attack on the British King, it is of course replete with attacks on the British King, are really attacks on the executive There are attacks, I think of them more as a federalism argument. There are attacks
on es central power controlling colonies. And so they're complaining about the fact that it's really London or Great Britain that is taking these rights away. It's really Great Britain where we don't you know, the founding fathers don't have representation. These are not complaints against what we understand to be the nature of executive power from say Machiavelli or even Blackstone. They're not complaints about being oppressed by king.
I think.
So I tried to argue that declaration it's anti executive heures really more of a complaint about essentral power oppressing the decentralized colonies.
Yeah, okay, I am. I'm not sure I buy the way you put it together, although I do think you're I think you're generally correct about you can tease out executive power. But I think that well, what I did, of course, is somebody you ignored. I dusted off Harvey Mansfield's great book on the ambivalence of executive power. And of course we think of Locke and Blackstone together as
championing parliamentary supremacy. But even in Locke, Harvey says, you can make out the understanding that you're going to need well the executive progative chapter.
Yes, you need to have an executive right characteristics.
But you know, Harvey pulls together in ways that I guess I haven't studied law carefully enough. He pulls together the way you can see that you want separation of powers and federal the things you just mentioned, separation of powers and federalism to constitutionalize and contain the executive, even though at the margins you can't really contain the executive in emergencies. Right, So I guess maybe I'm not really disagreeing with you. I'm just laying out a parallel analysis.
But it's the case that the declaration in these break this and this anti king George Litany is always held up by critics of president says see see the framing is uh. The framing reject executive power. It basically is a parliamentary system. The president just exists to execute congressional policy.
And I, you know, I agree. I don't know that I would evanghasize quite the same things you did, But I didn't disagree with anything that you wrote. Actually, John and I did mention that in our text messages back and forth that I was thrilled to see that, uh, you admit that, in fact the basis of our form of government is in fact consent uh and UH natural law, natural rights uh and people consent to the government. And that was I thought a wonderful addition to your.
I was, you know, you know, listener, something is up. Either they're drunk or they're trying to get something matter, because I do not understand when Linda's being so nice to me, you hand quote unquote nice luecret what's up with this? Am I about to No?
I do not, contrary to popular opinion, I am not irascible and disagreeable and opinionated against people when I agree with them. I mean, when you're right, you're right, and I thought you were right. I also said, for what is worth it, I don't take the arguments that that you just outlined from the other side very seriously because it just shows a really fundamental misunderstanding of the whole founding period. But I thought it was nice the way, and I hope Steve is going to link to it.
Nice the way you sort of walk through some of the experiences between the Declaration with the articles of Confederate with the states and their experiences, and and what I mentioned to you guys, and this is the truth, is that I often when I'm explaining to my students the need for the Federalist papers, why Hamilton wanted to write the Federalist papers, it's in fact because New York as a state did not offer from all of the same kinds of bad government, put it that way, ill government
that some of the other states did. And a big reason for that, you know, and they were, you know, becoming the economic capital of the world. A big reason for that was, in fact, the strong governor in New York. And I explained that as a way of saying this is you know, the Declaration of Independence does not necessarily preclude a strong executive, and I think that you can look into the Bill of Particulars and find just as many complaints about Parliament as you can about King George.
So first of all, John, I'll say this that I was mulling over this morning that you know, as thinking about the show today, I've never had any death threats, And then I thought, oh, wait a minute, I have had a few from Lucretia over the years.
I would rephrase that I get lots of death threats, but I never took any seriously until I met Lucretia.
Right. It was this. I was, as I sometimes do with you, John, I was fly specking your article more than I should because I thought, Arthur Slessiger. You start Arthur's Slesznger. I mean, it's Imperial Book junior, okay, and then Paul Mayer's book. I think it's got some good stuff in it, but here and there she betrays a real condescending historicism that you can't help and that always annoys me. But that's not your mainior argument necessarily. So let's get out with this.
Can I just give it one more positive thing about John. I think that's the reason.
There's been a lot of silly things written about the imperial presidency, et cetera, et cetera, and a lot of silly things written even about sort of pro presidency scholars who just don't get it.
So, even though I kind of made a little bit of fun of John saying I'm not sure that the people who argue that, you know, the declaration is against executive power even worth taking notice of. It has been a consistent theme for a long time that we should you know, that Congress should be ascendant and Congress is not acendant, and somehow because the administrative a sense a state is a send that we should curtail the powers of the presidency, and you know, all of those things.
So you do think that what you had to say was important, and from a very fundamental level, that's that's what I wanted to finish.
Actually, it actually ties together with the debate I had at Rogers with Rogers Smith, because they're the people are speaking with again mostly scientists and you know, retired academics. They they're inherently suspicious of the president. They just really are they really But then as like you really you
really trust Congress. You know, the alternative is parliamentary system, and you a really think Congress is doing a great job right now, I mean you would if you look at the opinion polls, right it says right, Trump's opinion polls don't look great, but they're still higher than Congress.
And there's still Congress has been for years.
Yeah, there were years, I think, didn't I I think I saw the Washington Post just did a poll where Congress's approval rating is now the single digits for the first time ever.
Yeah, they're down to staff and family and maybe the pets,
and I'm not too sure about that. Right. All right, let's let's uh, let's uh, let's take a very quick break, and we'll come back with one more thing on the declaration, and that's I want each of us to give our favorite passage or or theme from Thomas's speech, So don't go wait, we'll be right back, all right, lastly on the never, lastly in the Declaration, but lastly, for this episode, I want each of you to give me one sentence, or one passage, or one theme from Thomas's speech that
you think especially deserves noting and highlighting. So Lucretia, You're.
Up first, still mine. Of course it's obvious, but I don't know that I can remember the last time a major public figure actually made this argument. It's an argument and I'd made, not that you guys haven't, but I've made for years on the three whiskey Happy Hour, which is that the source of all of our ills is progressivism. And that I think was the most the most jarring thing to many people about Thomas's speech. Nobody's come out and said it in a public forum like that, Like
you say, I've been saying it for years. But so I want to read the short passage, and this is the thing that's driving people absolutely crazy. Progressivism seeks, this is Thomas. Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God but from the government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a constitution premised
on the transcendent origin of our rights. And speak about you mentioned it in your piece. You know Paine tim Taine and his stupid Sorry everybody gets upset when I say stupid there is no other word to describe how incredibly inane and stupid his remarks were. Our rights don't come from God. That's what Islam. Radical Islam believes, you know, stupid things like that. So that's my favorite part. And God bless Thomas for having the courage to say something like that.
Yeah, you know who else believe what Thomas said? John F. Kennedy among others in his inaugural dress. But never mind, that's agent that.
Was, That was what it is sixty some years ago, Steve.
I know, I know, you know, you you missed the one person you missed this, you know for Potosian Reddit. Lucretius talked about Steve substack post today where he listed all the famous Democrats who appros proved of natural rights, but you missed one other skeptic, the Lucretia's favorite justice on the Supreme Court. Remember Catan Brown Jackson refused to answer the question at her confirmation hearing if there was such a thing as natural rights.
Yeah, but you know who else did that? With Atlanta Kagan and her confirmation hearings now what twenty years ago also refused to answer that question.
So a long case anybody wonders why that in and of itself is such a dangerous question for the progressive left. It's a simple answer to that. If there are natural light rights, that is a limitation on what government can do, and therefore a limitation on their power as they sit
in government. That is why Tim Kaine and Katanji and all those other people want to deny that there is something greater than themselves as all powerful government officials, that might define how they ought to exercise their power.
Ye, so some things about the speech. Since I was there, it was a watching it is great, but being in person was incredible because the video doesn't capture the electric atmosphere in the room where you don't hear. Nobody was coughing, no one left, you could it was so silent because people were really hanging on as every word. I can't even remember the last time, you know, there was a
public speech like that. Another thing, and I sort of remarked on this or a Sueider some other professors the next day marked and they said, when was the last time you heard a serious speech about political philosophy from a major political leader? That right, most speeches these days are, you know, accumulation of sound bites where everyone's trying to sound like John R.
Spikers, right, and.
So it's almost said this was almost A friend of mine said, this was like a sermon, almost on public virtue. And so they said, when was the last time you remember an American president, the leader, just Supreme Court justice actually deliver a speech. And then the third thing I thought was interesting is what do you think when was the last time a single person gave a speech in our country that sparked so much debate among intellectuals about what it means? Is it correct?
Right?
Like the amount of discussion going on by right people like us by single speech.
When was the last.
Time that actually happened? Well, and I'm not talking about Harod Jaffa.
No no, no, no no no, I.
Said in a seminar Leonard Levy, making John Easton cry and class.
How about a single public speech? Well wait a minute, time, Well I lost time that happened, not to this magnitude, but look, remember you had I think two Supreme Court justices made public statements rebutting Attorney General Ed mess when edme said we ought to have original intent back on our constitutional interpretation. And we kind of know how that debate unfolded. I think that drew out all and all the prophet sorry had published lawry articles the this is terrible.
Our teacher Leonard Levy wrote a whole book attacking bork An original intent in nineteen eighty seven, and the later backed off.
Anyway, it was about forty years ago, area, and.
Even that I wouldn't consider at this level. I mean, this is as basic a level about American founding principles as you can get. Originalism is a method, a method tied, but a method. This is about how the reigning orthodoxy of our political elites, pretty much across the board, is fundamentally unsound and opposed to our constitutional system of government. And I know I'm not supposed to do one more thing, but let me just bring this out a little bit.
And that the other part of what I found so compelling about his speech, which is very much such a Thomas thing. You know, him and Virginia going out in their their temper that rvsiting America. You know, it's it's it's I'm not going to speak to you academics. I don't care about you academics. If we're going to save this country. It's a little bit trumpion here. If we're gonna save this country, it's going to be from the
common sense of the average good American. And you gotta love that, you know, and you know Thomas believes it, and you know it offends those academics and those elite intellectual elites more than anything else. He said, because oh wait, you think that the Holy PELOI is going to save this country from us? How insulting?
Right, So he addressed this this point I think in the question I keep asking you guys on prove to me that natural rights natural rights exist and where they come from. And it's the way he says it is.
He doesn't have any high eluding STRAUSI and metaphysics, which I'm sure you guys could have filled in the for the speech, but he just says something along the lines of, uh, you know, his all the blacks he lived with who were living under segregation and has extended from slavery, where many were illiterate and uneducated, and they knew it was true.
Yeah.
So I'm still not sure why that proves it. I want you guys to explain that to me one of these days. But let me give you my favorite quote. I want to make sure you're listening very carefully because these were These words were no doubt the most important words in the speech.
Wishes.
I'm grateful for the assistance of my former law clerk, Professor John You I. I think he labored over those led over them. John.
I got so many people on Twitter.
In terms of why that's in the speech just to explain is that he was thinking me for inviting him to confiicate.
Ut lots of people commented, but your stock way.
Up the vote is.
The real clue. Actually, I got a lot of texts from people saying I didn't know you were moving to Austin from Berkeley, and I was like, thank you Justice for announcing to everyone that I am now leaving, which I hadn't even told people Berkeley yet. So my favorite line is we were fortunate not to trade our lockey and bounds for the supposedly and light world of Hegel, Marx and their followers. Fascism, which after all was a national socialism, triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed
tens of millions. The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens of millions of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to the higher goods, higher good of notions of history, progress or, as Thomas sol has written, the visions of the annoyance.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
Yeah, I think really triggered. But as you say, you guys saying that, I think that really triggered people on the left. They don't want to be associated with the right where they got the ideas from, because they don't like to see what happens when they carry to their natural conclusion.
Yeah. And also, well, John, to to your previous point, Tom, Well, first all, the answer your question is where's Thomas anchoring the natural rights? It's with the idea of common sense understanding a political life of Aristotle. But he does have a nice shot of the academics. I wasn't going to highlight these for mind, I have a different one. But he says, you're in page three of the text that
I have somehow without formal education, subtle dig there. Right, the older people knew that these god given or natural rights preceded and transcendent government power or authority. A few sentences later, he says, all too often there is an unfortunate tendency when discussing a declaration to make these self evident truths in first principle of government obscure, well, making everything obscure. Right, mind, break.
Quickly finished the next sentence, because this is a slam of you guys in your profession. No, it's not want you to believe that our founding are matters of philosophy debate. He's talking about you, guys.
No, he means, he means Jack balcon and people. Never mind to be continued, mine do very quickly, and then we'll go to a last break and change subsec completely. I liked the passage starting on page five where he says, when I encounter the declaration of independence in you today, I am most struck by the final sentence, and of course he quotes it, the sentence about we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortune, and our sacred honor.
And he goes on for three more pages to talk about what that means, my simple proposition, and then we'll go to a break, because I don't need to dilate it is honor is another place the progressive left cannot go because I really don't believe in it. And and if you actually play out the connection between honor and say, the pursuit of happiness. This is the point I made in Austin two three weeks back when we were all there. You realize that, again, these are classical men in a
deep way, and they weren't. But what's the line Lucretia and I forget what Shakespearean play it is where one of his characters scoffs at honor. It's a mere word, right, and that's what progressive honor is not meaningful to the progressive left. So for Thomas to embrace that was one more little insult. And they can't go there. They're scared of it, That's all.
Can I say? One laste? I'm not sure this is just speculation. Is a lot of the part of the speech that isn't getting covered is how he was not just criticizing progressives, but you're the language you're quoting who was calling on the younger generations to sort of dedicate themselves on a level of honor as you're saying, And he mentions things like the battlefield of the Revolution, Normandy Civil War. Yeah, the Civil War. And so maybe you guys edu came me because you're of this same generation.
It seemed to me he was looking back as a baby boomer and looking about all the destruction your generation wrought on America and read John has failed to measure up to the people from World War Two. He mentions World War two several times. And he's hoping the doctor generation, Yeah, and the generation that follows you restores the principles of
the And he's hoping for that. But he recognizes, not explicit but I think implicitly that his generation is the one that dropped the Declaration of Independence and attacks the Constitution and you guys made a monk of everything.
I hear, by the way, all the time from from younger people, teacher that I teach, and so on. And it's very difficult if you talk about it in sort of you know, massive terms to argue against the This generation is self you know, they're self absorbed, they're narcissistic, they're uh, you know, their pleasure seeking to the worst degree. And so he's the fact that he is of that generation and can criticize it, I think is also very important.
And there's a possibility, there is a possibility. It reminds me a little bit when I read about that. You know who I thought it was Michael J. Fox in what was the name of that show, Family Family Ties. You know what, when you know, so many years of liberal politics and so on, and then then it's the Reagan era and the parents of these god awful we're not hippies and and you know, right, and and that
sort of reminded me of sort of appealing. There's a possibility as generations flip, you know, that maybe these young people actually can be saved, maybe they need to be reminded.
But well, you push one of you push one of my pop culture buttons, because I always say the arc of popular culture went from father Knows Best in the fifties no to sixties, to Father knows Least be are known as all in the family in the seventies. In the eighties of Family Ties, Mike Stimock was succeeded by Michael J. Fox's character who I don't remember what the character's name, but right, he read the Wall Street Journals, Alex was he read the Wall Street Journal or a
tie in quoted William Buckway. Right, that was sort of interesting how that turned. Now we don't have sitcoms anymore because Rob Long has been made obsolete and redundant.
Unfortunately, before you go to break though, because I don't sorry, but really quickly, because you know what you are, you're going to move on. I'm concerned watching The Man of Sphere and.
You know, the.
Weird sort of alt right young men who are taking things off into like the worst possible nonsense, and I almost look at it as some kind of evil plot to prevent that common sense that would otherwise be sort of bubbling up in our young men today.
Yeah that maybe, Yeah, that, John is why we need to persuade Justice Thomas to follow the example of Cornell West and do a rap album for these junk guys. So did he actually do that? Yeah you didn't know that, Yeah he did, He really did that. He did. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come back with
our closing segment and don't go away. All right. A lot of stuff in the news this week worth noting, but the one that I think is potentially huge, maybe not maybe strike potentially I think is huge is the federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which I've long called the Southern Poverty Libel Center, and they've gotten
kid glove treatment from the media. Forever, any media organization bought her to say, Gosh, I wonder if they're right to say that, you know, the Alliance Defending Freedom as a hate group. Maybe they went to the Washington Post tentatively did that five or six years ago. And so now the damn may break because I've known forever that they're a corrupt bunch, and it may be worse than that. So I'll stop there because I'll bet Lucretia has thoughts on this story.
We can we verify before she goes whether Lucretia is actually on the hate map, because I look and there is a little little red bob way down to southand Arizona, and I was like, you will hear her.
I do have an answer to that walk out? Start with that. Before that, I want to remind you that it was only it was less than a year ago that the CEO or whatever of the Southern Poverty Law Center was you know, as usual Swallwell, Caesar Chavas just a typical leftist, treats women like you know what, et cetera, et cetera, And that got barely anything. He got moved out, they moved on, and you know, imagine if that had happened, say at the Heritage Foundation, where the you know the
head of the Heritage Foundation had been mistreating women. And anyway, So here's my little story which may explain the red one. It's actually not about me, it's about my son. My son was in a class in college that it was actually immigration and refugee policy, was the US immigration and refugee policy. And he wrote a paper and in his paper he quoted something from Breitbart News. Oh, and the instructor stood out and read and wrote, this is not a legitimate news source and said, do you know what
they are? Something like what they're rated by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Right, And he had to rewrite the paper and take out the reference to Breitbart because Breitbart was called a racist organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center. There's my little explanation for that red dot down here.
Notice how she didn't answer the question whether she herself.
Is in I'd ask for more money.
I look, look, I know someone who is on the list. I'll come back to that. We have a good question from Ted, one of our Free correspondents. Yeah, well it's in the love Chat. Why are no individuals indicted? And I think maybe because they've left the I'm not sure, do you know, John, or you probably don't know.
I mean, actually, it's harder to indict an organization criminally than it is individual So that's actually more of a signal that and maybe that's because the just upon is trying to actually shut it down. If you indict individuals, then often what a corporation would do is they just all righties with the individual and the corporation keeps keeps going on like it ever did. So yeah, yeah, this is really an effort to bring down the whole, the whole organization. And don't want to come.
Before before we go on, I want to point out, just because the left has been so disingenuous about this as usual, and that is the fact that it was not the Justice Department who just sort of brought some sort of presentment against them. An Alabama grand jury brought these charges against the SPLC, not the Justice Department. The
Justice Department. I mean, so you can say that the Justice Department and the Trump administration is going after these people to hide their racism, and I guess you could probably even say that the Alabama grand jury jurors are also racist pigs who don't understand what a great organization SPLC Isn't They don't understand that this is just like when the Department of Justice puts or the FBI puts confidential informants inside of an organization. Why are they getting so upset about this?
Right, Well, the SPLC, it is not a law enforcement agency first of all. That simple point. Look, I think, well, we'll see where this all goes. We'll see what discovery brings beause I'm sure there's going to be a lot of this.
See if can I ask you something on you said in one of our conversations that you were onto them years and years ago. Yeah, right, How like, what are the circumstances of that? How did you get on? How did you figure out that they were this kind of running this kind of fundraising scam essentially that's based in making extremism worse. While before the Justice Department did.
Well, I never, I never, never thought it possible they were doing false flag operations. Hold that thought for a moment. Well, I mean there have been a few brave journalists, usually with bright Bart News, who said, hey, wait a minute, what's going on here? And you know, they have had a lot of scandals internally before they fired Morris D's a couple of years ago. But it came to when
they put Charles Murray on the list. Now, of course I know Charles very well and talked to him about this, and he said, I thought about suing them for libel. So the problem was they have such deep pockets. They would put up ferocious resistance. They would draw it out for years. They would make my life miserable with depositions and discovery. On the backside, they'd want all my emails with Dick Hernstein on the Bell Curve and so forth. Or I'm sure there's nothing but and he said, but
I don't want to expend that much mental energy. I don't want to have that anxiety for years just to prove a point, even though he thought he could probably win, and Libel lawyers told him he probably had a good case. So it's things like that, Right, they've Charlie Kirk, right, they said Charlie Kirk belonged to the hate app And
I don't know. I'm usually I'm cautious about these things, but I'm totally comfortable with saying they are complicit in creating a climate of hate that led to Charlie Kirk's murder. That's probably demagogic, but they e fing deserve it, is my view.
I mean, there was been a shooting at the Family Research Oh yes, right, the sugar actually said I got the name of this group from the such the hate hate.
I thought the Family Research Council could have sued them. What they might have I'm not sure. But last point, and I want to get your opinion on this, Lucretia, because this is right down your rally. There's good evidence that they are involved in paying somebody a lot of money to help organize this famous, infamous Charlottesville Hey, Unite the Right rally. And I'm wondering now, gosh, I wonder if they had a hand in the events of January. Oh, come on, I knew you were going to ruin it.
You found it so reasonable and oh, I'll do.
It to split the baby between the two of you. And my answer so then I don't send John completely crazy.
That is that the one thing that we've learned from the SPLC scandal, whatever you want to call it, is that the supply of white supremacy racism in the United States is much is entirely too small to fit the need for finding white supremacy in the United States, and you might I mean, you guys heard what Trump said I think today, which was that if it turns out that the SBLC was actually behind all of these things, he is going to ask that, I don't know what
this means. I really don't know what this means. That the twenty twenty election be considered illegitimate. You can't really do that in my understanding. And again, even if it turns out that everything the worst we think is true, there are you know, there's things that happen that are untrue that have effects on elections that you can't really you know, that's the way they go, unfortunately. So you know, I think Trump was just bloviating there, But it is
true that there's not enough racism to go around. And that's literally what it comes down to. And all of these channeling my Clarence Thomas, all of these civil rights pimps, I recognize that without a continued supply of these horrible racist incidents, which more and more often turned out to be made up or manufactured, they've got no place. I mean,
DEI is already crumbling. How are they going to bring it back when a new regime comes in, they've got to have these white supremacists who are lurking underneath every corner. I don't know what the right analogy is, but you get my point, all.
Right, Lucretia, you get your Babylon Bees ready, while I a last rhetorical question here, which is I wanted for a long time? Also, John, how come there's no northern poverty law centers? How come there's no Midwestern poverty law center with a bunch of guys overalls, you know, Johan Omar, it's an opportunity here. Is there's something special about southern poverty? I don't know. It's I've always thought that was a weird aspect.
Of this is ever a decent organization? I don't really know.
It started out with noble ideas that attack, you know, attacking the KKK. But the KKKY, the society, as you pointed out, succeeded in stamping out most of.
The David Duke didn't get elected to Congress.
Yeah, it's a weird friend organization.
Now, yeah, they go back a long way. Okay, Lucretia, you're up.
I'm up. Democrats. It's a picture of Schumer is just despicable. I'm sorry that man. Oh anyway, now, Democrats devastated to learn America less racist than they thought.
Yeah.
After losing SPLC funding, KKK forced to buy rogues off team. Okay, so we didn't talk about it, but it's a great it's a map, and it's it's a great map and California's blue, Virginia's blue and blue line in between it says, too far gerrymandered. Virginia congressional map includes California.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess it works better.
If you can see it, right, yea? Oh sorry. Trump admin moves to legalize marijuana for those with a medical need or having to fly on Spirit airlines. O god right yeah, oh no, sorry, I get to the last page here. Crazy old guy is a picture of Biden. Crazy old guy at nursing home keeps telling people he was once the president. Have you been watching him lately? Oh my gosh, it's been out there. New evidence reveals Judas received his thirty pieces of silver from the SPLC.
And then we didn't we we didn't talk about the polymarket nonsense. But this one's but everybody knows about it. This one's actually pretty funny. Nation on Edge after Soldier pledges fifty thousand polymarket bet that Trump will nw Goaran.
Oh that is Oh that's almost worth doing.
Right, Okay, one last one and I'm problems I've done. SBLC says funding KKK only three percent of what they do.
Right. Oh yeah, you have to think about that from it before it really drops in.
Right, Okay, I'm done. All right, John, nice to see everyone.
Always drink your whiskey, need buy more books? And Steve, what do you have for us?
An AI? IW No, I'm not doing AI anymore. I may come back to it, but I want to move it up. Well, I'm going to think about that, but instead we're just going to do a new formal ending. You've been listening to The Three Whiskey Happy Hour, the podcast devoted to single malts, say, gular metaphysics and advanced Sydney Sweeney's studies. We thank our sponsors, especially the Civitas
Institute and our production host Ricochet dot Com. If you like our show, please leave a five star review on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you source your favorite podcasts. Helps us build our listeners. Send us your comments, but do please be nice to John and also your favorite whiskeys until next week for John and Lucretia. Bye bye for now, and we are out Ricochet. Join the conversation.