Well whiskey coming gabtain money, Oh why don't you?
From Powerline blog dot com and produced by Ricochet dot Com. This is the three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward, John You and power Lines International Woman of Mystery Lucretia cat Gotta giving.
Let that whiskey bloon where you're being in love down he lod.
Well.
Hi everybody, It's the three Whiskey Happy Hour from two different time zones. I am today coming to you from Ricky mc iceland home off what I just showed lucretiaan John the Monument to the Unknown Bureaucrat. That really is such a thing, and I'll put it in the show notes. And there's also some strange hot dogs here that are gonna give John a run for his money for the McRib, I think, and I'll quite understand that.
But anyway, how are you guys.
Doing doing well?
Steve? How are you well?
Jet lag? But right, oh right, I want.
The record to show that actually I prefer hot dogs to the McRib it's only because McDonald's doesn't make hot dogs that I have to eat mcgribs. Oh, I love hot dogs. I've had hot dogs everywhere I travel.
I think I can.
That's like the first American food I can remember eating as a kid.
Oh all right, so quick question Sebrettes or Nathan's.
Oh Nathan's, come on, it's really how you can compare them. It's more like whether you like them boiled or grilled. I don't understand boiled hot dogs at all. Grilled they're so much better.
Now, you're right about that. And if you can't grill them, you put them in a frying pan. And you know. But I will tell you that I wouldn't eat hot dogs except at our favorite liquor storage on Costco cells hot dogs that don't have any junk in them. They're just beef spices. I know, what are you going to do? But they're pretty good.
Like despite all its crazy progressive values. I love cost Co for right. They have for was it a dollar fifty nine hot dog and soda? And they claim the price has never changed and will never change because.
It's a lost leader, I think.
But then the next question, then, John, is this, I'm surprised, after all these years we haven't actually made a pilgrimage to Top Dog in Berkeley.
The oh I love top Dog In fact, the listeners. If you ever stopped in Berkeley, you should come. It is run by some crazy libertarian in the inside of the Top Dog is wallpapered with all kinds of weird libertarian stuff like Cato newsletters are like the most you know, liberal thing you'll find in there. He's got his own handwritten writings in there. But yeah, that makes total sense for a guy who's probably working on a two percent profit margin.
It's been around forever.
I mean, I think it goes back to the seventies, and it's an institution, right.
One of the great one of the great things is on. Governor Pete Wilson was speaking at Berkeley a few years after he left the governorship and so I was escorting him after and I was trying to take him some find some place for lunch. I was like, oh, you want to go to the faculty Club. You want to go this place? He goes, Hey, what's that hot dog stand over there? And that's where he wanted to go.
So we had two top Dogs, which is a you know, it's like a Manhattan There's a long, skinny hot dog, which I really like.
And the guy had no idea who.
Governor Wilson is. And so when we were leaving, Governor Wilson said, he said, my friend, you make a tough top dog. That's great.
Well, I don't think the owner actually works the counter, I mean a hired hell.
But yeah, okay, right, well.
All right we yeah, listeners, we have a big debate to have amongst us here today, which I'll introduced a new course.
But just a little bit of the news.
One of the blessed things about going overseas and being jetlagged is that I missed the Kamala Harris CNN interview. By all accounts I read online, it sounds pretty dreadful. And you know, it used to be I would say the foremost depressing words in the English language are the bar is closed. But I now think the foremost depressing words in the English language were uttered by Kamala Harris in her interview last night. My values haven't changed. She
said that several times. That was the main message, my values haven't changed. That's a pretty frightening thought. And I am pleased to see that the Trump campaign is out with an ad.
At least it's up on social media. Say more about that.
Picking up on this line as they ought to and then just doing clips of all the radical opinions and.
Values she has had over the years.
And I think that's what they ought to do. But what a frightening thing to say. Do you guys watch it or what are you paying attention to on any of that?
In front?
I couldn't watch it. I don't have that much inner fortitude anymore. But I watched, you know, after the fact. I couldn't watch it live.
Yeah.
Oh. The funny thing was, is that before before she before they released it. I guess I should say before they released it. They released one line from it. It didn't make any sense to me, but the line was, if I hold on, I'm looking for it, the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter to which we should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time. And I could see and my thought was, if they're released this is what CNN released, what's the
rest of it going to be like? If they edited I mean, or what did they edit out of it? I mean, if this is the best they can do.
Apparently two thirds of the interview was edited out because they talked for nearly an hour when they only broadcast eighteen minutes worth or whatever they did said, which is astounding. Yeah and yeah that I mean, she's been taking some heat for not talking about clim a change, which is on purpose because they finally got the message that it's a super low priority for voters.
And that may be I think, actually, what.
Is she saying? My values haven't changed? That is a hint to all the progressives. Don't worry about me changing my mind on fracking and quote unquote moving.
To the the border and for.
The rest of that right, once I'm in offense, it's going to be the same old you know, Joe Biden times ten crazy stuff. The progressive mob will still be in charge and so forth. But I have to say, John, has CaMLA captured your vote by claiming that she worked at McDonald's as a young person.
Apparently she lied. I bet she's the reason why Dolan Valor the McClory machine's always broken because of her.
No, you cannot blame kamalamading Dong for that. She actually lied about it. There is no evidence it's stolen valor that she worked at McDonald's. There's no evidence from McDonald's. There's no She never discussed it in any of her previous biographies, it's never been on a resume, and so it turns out she lied about it.
Well, what was she got her to do is identify the actual place and who the manager was actually even exists that actually worked the machines.
Maybe you can get Dana Bash to ask her that and then give her the answer to But I actually.
Think the interview was a little was clever in this respect. I think it's as Steve said, she's running from the left and she's trying to portray herself for as a moderate. The interesting I didn't hear her talk about was any identity politics, right. She didn't go on and on about how she'd be the first woman president, so first black
woman president. I thought that was obviously. She didn't talk much about abortion, which you know, on the stump has been her big issue, barely mentioned it, if she did mention it more than once. In terms of this other than talking about freedom, freedom, freedom, I didn't see it. It was you know, she she made her pitch based on making life better for eco, life better for the middle class, which you know, all the policy she's have been involved with for the last three years have.
Ruined, you know, this whole McDonald's thing is kind of interesting in this sense. It was true at one point, and I haven't looked for a long time, but twenty some years ago I heard a statistic, which I think was correct, that something like two thirds of all non college educated working Americans had their first job in fast food, you know, as teenagers, so you know, McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, whatever.
It was an enormous number.
In other words, that is the entry level job experience for a very large number of Americans.
And I don't know if that's still true or not.
It might be, but with all the immigration other things that it might have crossed it up or made it bigger. I don't know, but I do wonder if there isn't something interesting to be done in a careful study of you know, again, it's another aspect of the class divide. To the people who had their first jobs at McDonald's and other fast foods, are they overwhelmingly Trump voters. I'll
bet the answer is yes. And are the you know, the people who worked as interns at the Human Rights Campaign Fund or whatever, right, you know, the more elite occupations of the world and the higher education and so forth. Are they skewed the lab. I bet that's probably true too, could be interesting.
I don't know nowadays. Go ahead, I was just going to say, so a couple of things on that I have not yet seen a McDonald's lately that wasn't staffed, not by young, pimply faced people in high school or in college, but by robots. You know, they're all kiosks. And so number one, number two, Uh, there's the only couple of McDonald's in the time in which I live, one of them in a sort of there's not much else out there. On a Saturday night at six point thirty, we drove by it. There was one car in the
drive through, no cars in the parking lot. McDonald's is suffering, suffering, seriously. So I don't think any any of those hard working middle westerners, you know, teenagers are working at McDonald's anymore. Is when it comes down. But they did.
Yeah, I mean it is shocking how expensive it is now if you're not eating on the dollar menu like John does.
But you know he eats on the app.
I the app.
Yeah, you get free fries almost every time you order on the app. Steve, you are so primitive. But I don't know I think Lucreatie is right. Every time you go into McDonald's, I've always impressed at the latest technology they've adopted. So they yeah, the ki everybody uses the kiosks now.
But I do remember fondly the commercials that were popular might have been before John's time, but I'm sure Steve you'll remember it. I think I mentioned it before, is the commercials of all the famous people whose first job it was a McDonald's commercial, was first job was working at McDonald's. It was really I thought quite a quite a compelling commercial.
Well, I mean, part of the point of that old statistic I mentioned was is everybody looks down on We used to call the mac jobs, you know, fast food job, burger flipping. But that teaches young people the first discipline of the workplace, right, Yes, you got to do a job well, you got to show up on time, et cetera. So they got to put up with lousy bosses and co worker. You know, it's a it's a can have to be quite useful, something schools can't.
Teach and not intended to be a lifetime occupation. Correct, That's why you don't have to have a minimum wage to shouldn't have to have a minimum wage to work at McDonald's.
Yeah, right, and the opportunity to be surrounded by great American food twenty four to seven. It used to be great American food that you should pay for the privilege.
Yeah.
Well, Actually, one funny thing is we've all been traveling abroad these last few years, and I always go to McDonald's and places abroad, and I think McDonald's has become the kind of like a hit place for teenagers in other countries to hang out. Yeah, like the it's people who don't want to eat like Italian food or French food all the time, they go hang out at McDonald's.
Love. Yeah.
Two things about the one is that I remember in Germany, back to the McDonald's in a second, that the people would stand in line in the summertime for and it was field corn. It wasn't sweet corn, but corn on the cob, because that was such a novelty in Germany. But the other thing was so and we were transferred to Germany and we'd only been there about a week, and our getting there, the whole arrival was pretty much
of a disaster that I won't go into. So we have little kids, you know, the kids are little, and we see a McDonald's and it just looks like home. It looks like home. So we go to McDonald's. My little guy, my big guy was then a little guy, get him a happy meal. First of all, they want to charge you for ketchup. It was ten fennings for ketchup, but mayonnaise was free for your French fries bill Esteine's. But also so the happy meal came with a hot wheel.
It was a hot wheel happy meal. So it came with a little hot wheel car and a little and a piece of track. The piece of track had mandatory direction of travel arrows on it, which is if you've ever spent any time in Germany, it was just such the German what would you call it? Subversion of the great American happy meal. That's my story about McDonald's.
Yeah, well they're beating the crap out of them. Twice didn't fully work. We gotta go back one more.
We gotta go back on that note. Then then the little guy went to German kindergarten and got kicked out on the first day because somebody tried to take a toy from him, which I guess is allowed. And he beat the you know what out of.
Them, Steve. Steve's a big fan of The Simpsons. One of the I think funniest things I ever saw the Simpsons was the ann Rand Kindergarten.
Oh yes, and ran school for tots, Yes, where the motto on the on the side of the wall was A is not non a.
Oh yeah, that was wonderful stuff.
Right, all right, Well enough about Kamala and McDonald's.
And uh so we'll go onto the main course, shall we.
I mean, we could talk about poles, but that'll keep because I have lots of thoughts on that and they will change. All right, So, listeners, today is a back to the classroom episode, and really it's John is sitting in the corner in the dunce cap, so we're making him go back to the classroom.
You did realize that was going to happen, John, Right, Let me give them.
Back then I learned best from the best from the back of the room, probably like most of the listeners.
Okay, let me set the scene for listeners.
Here.
This story, this story topic that evolved during the week. So early in the week on Twitter, Seth Dillon, who's one of the proprietors of the magnificent Babylon Bee posted a tweet, a long one. I guess he's got one of those accounts where you can write over two hundred and eighty characters, in which he expressed supreme disappointment and criticism in Donald Trump for going wobbly on abortion. Uh
and and there's like recent news on that. Late in the week, he said he opposed the Florida law the would ban abortion of six weeks, but then his campaign issue to state and saying not necessarily.
So it's a very confused scene.
Never mind exactly where he stands. It was Dylan's argument that's important. What he said was, look, you know, we didn't leave slavery to the states. That wasn't Lincoln's position. Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery something words to that effect, to which our own Lucretia Recla replied at some length on Twitter saying you didn't put it this way, Lucretia, but sent your Babylon beefan.
The subtext was, look.
I love you, Seth, I love to be, but you are misunderstanding Lincoln's prudence in the case. And I have more ways to set up the depth of topic, but I will let you go ahead and restate the argument as you put it, because you'll do it better.
Than I am.
Yes, I probably won't because I had to think that one through really well as I was writing it. Not that I don't understand the argument, but to make it.
Started to interrupt.
I mentioned I did post it the whole exchange on power line early in the week, but for people didn't see it, I'll a link to it in the sh oh no, but but go ahead.
So so the point I think that number that because John has mentioned this before and in podcasts, there are quite a few analogies between the debate over slavery and the debate over abortion, beginning with the fact that it is a question of what is a human being? That was a question, uh that was very prominent in the slavery debate. People don't necessarily want to confront that all of the time, but it's the same question that comes up in the abortion debate. When when When is an
unborn baby? When is a fetus uh, actually a human being and therefore deserving of the protection of the state. The question in the Antebellum period about slavery was, of course, is a is a slave a black? A person born. You know, as Dred Scott put it, the decision, uh, is a person of African considered a human being that possesses all the rights and privileges that we give to
human beings. And the Supreme Court's decision in that case was no right just very much as you might say the decision in Roe versus Wade was a no. You know that an unborn child is not a human being, at least not for the first two trimsters, I guess
you could say anyway. So that's the first part, and that's the beginning point for Lincoln, which is that yes, in fact, and he spent a lot of time, a lot of conversations proving that not only was a black a human being, a slave a human being, but that the South and slave owners considered them human beings as well.
The nature of their laws, the protections, that the fact that slaves could in fact be held to the criminal code, to the moral law, all of these things proved in Lincoln's view that blacks for human beings, and if human beings, then should have the protection guaranteed to them by the Constitution as human beings under the meaning of the Decoration
of Independence. But that being said, Lincoln understood probably better than anyone, why it was impossible, either in seventeen eighty seven or perhaps even in eighteen save fifty four, simply to abolish slavery and make all the slaves free, and then that, in that way make the Constitution consistent with the Declaration of Independence. That was really his you know, over simple like yeah, jump in.
Steve, Well, just interrupt to make sure you enumerate what those factors are.
I think maybe you would.
But it's public opinion was not supporting that, certainly in the South.
But gets it.
Okay, Well, couple ahead. But you have people saying that Lincoln was just outright against slavery, which he was. He believed it was a he believed it was a moral evil.
He believed that that official support for the idea that slavery was a positive good, that blacks were somehow an inferior form of being, not deserving of the same rights as whites, all of those things, if those became the official positions, would destroy the possibility of freedom and really destroy the possibility that the Constitution could protect the rights of even white citizens. I'm not doing a really great job of this because I'm trying to pull too much together.
But that being said, the Constitution did in fact make slavery legal, or excuse me, I'll say this right, Steve, Sorry, the Constitution did in fact allow states to make a decision about slavery under the principles of federalism, and that the fact of slavery, the institution of slavery among so
many Southern states, the economic dependence upon it. You have the great Jefferson line that says, can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we've removed their only firm basis that our rights are the gift of God? And he goes on and talks about how God's going to bring about his wrath on slave owners and it'll be justified. I mean, Lincoln Jefferson are very clear slavery was a moral wrong, but it was enshrined in the
Constitution for reasons we've talked about. If you use Lincoln as your model for how you should resolve the slavery debate, which is what Seth Dylon did, and it was shorthand so you know, I give him some cut him some slack there. You have to understand what Lincoln understood, and that is what Steve just said what is possible, what is possible in this political environment. And it wasn't just we give up, because there are lots of people who
are committed to the institution of slavery. Their powerful they they hold at that time most of the reigns of power, am I not? Am I right, Steve? I mean they had the Supreme Court, they had the Presidency, they had you know, at least fifty to fifty in the Senate. And that was one of the reasons why they were pushing so hard to extend slavery into the territories, because if those territories came into the Union as free states, they would lose their power. Again. This is you know,
could spend days talking about this. But Lincoln understood the difference between prudence in the question of trying to move the country. He called it to the ultimate extinction of slavery and simply trying to argue for the abolition of slavery immediately. And that's where you can't use Lincoln as your analogy against Trump, because actually I think Trump is being very linkeent Linconian about this.
Right, Well, let me put let me put this way, because I want to actually bring up John's problem or the problem we have with John and bring him into this.
Look.
I mean, I think the sharp parallel is, uh Dylan didn't quite say this directly, or maybe he did, but a lot of people are saying pro life people are saying, well, gosh, Trump has abandoned us, we shouldn't vote for him.
What's that the iv P stuff.
I'm not paying attention. I'm not paying attention to all.
That's a big part of it, though, Steve. But anyway, you don't have to.
It's fine, that's yeah. And and the point is at least two observations you can start with. One is I mean, would we have thought we now would? I think hast a rather uh severe judgment. Maybe it's too strong against people who said, well, you shouldn't vote for Lincoln, he's not sufficiently robust enough against slavery, which, by the way, some urban abolitionists did constantly criticize, right William Lloyd Garrison and others.
And then the second one is.
This is a rough parallel, but the initial political position of Lincoln the Republicans was West stop the expansion, the further expansion of slavery period. And we believe we have constitutional power to do that, which I think they were right about. Well, that's a rough parallel to Trump saying or Republicans saying, let's repeal ROW and give the matter back to the states and to the political branches. Because by the way, again I don't like Holocaust analogies very much.
But although it does not end abortion, it certainly allows for a lot more room and for restrictions on abortion, including restrictions that a majority of the public probably supports, like on late term abortion and sex selection abortions and certain other things.
And so one.
Practical question you want to ask is, in the absence of the total abolition of abortion, which seems very unlikely and that the public does not support, what is wrong with it is hard to criticize the position of Trump saying, let's give it back to the States, and we have to take a long term view.
Of the matter. That's one way of thinking about it.
In other words, John, here'she we run into trouble with you, or where you erase.
Your mischievous review of things.
The first pass on prudences, it's matching means with ends, although it assumes that you know what the ends are and have it deliberated. In other words, that's a matter of deliberation itself. And your response was, and now I'll let you speak for yourself. You said, nah, prudence has just cost benefit analysis. It's sure you utilitarianism coming out again. Is that a fair one sentence summary of your view or your Yeah, Jack, does a prudence?
Go ahead.
I don't understand what this term prudence means the way you use it. So I think any sensible, self interested political actor will want achieve whatever goal they have, and then they will try to choose amongst different policies and paths that maximize their success over the long term. If that's what you mean by prudence, that makes total sense
to me. But I don't think it needs a special not that doesn't need a special word, so you could say Lincoln and especially makes sense in a you know, in a republic where you have different people who have different values, so everybody will compromise to UH because they
believe it brings them closer to their ultimate goal. But right, you can decide to pursue a short term outcome, but you know, sometimes requires you, if you're doing it right, to choose something where you might not get as much right now for something you'll get later, longer term, so you could say Lincoln had different choices before the South seceded, right, he had said that he would not try to end
slavery in the states where it already existed. He did say he thought slavery could be regulated by Congress and the territories that. You know, from the short term perspective, you could say that put aside, that would have made abolitionists angry. But he's taking account of the political system and the chances for success now. So for him, it's a gradual process of winning victories in the hope of
eventually winning in the long term. I don't see why you need a fancy word like prudence to describe that. I think that's just what politicians do all the time. I think that's what the leaders do all the time. So they can get it wrong, they can get it wrong.
But so listeners, Uh, while while Lucretia sorts out her microphone has suddenly gone dead, you should know that she's been shaking her head vigorously in the background while John has been laying out his position.
You pretend like that's something unusual. Now, I'm often doing that.
I was going to toss to Lucretia right away to one more so, one more example.
You guys threw its Churchill. Oh, Churchill's greatest example of prudence blah blah blah. So you know Churchill did some controversial things, like a good examples, he decided to sink the French fleet after the French had surrendered.
That.
I don't know what prudence adds to it. It's just like, is it better to prevent that from falling into the hands of the Nazis? Even though you take this short term political hit, in the long run, it makes more sense to sink the French fleet and prevent the Germans from getting control that fleet. But it's not.
I also think fancy.
It is something fancy John, because you keep using you keep using economic terms and pragmatic terms. The point is why would Lincoln? It's not why would Lincoln care if
slavery was abolished. The only personal anecdote or example that Lincoln ever brought to bear about why he cared about slavery from a personal point of view was how he took a trip down the Mississippi one time, a horrible trip, and on the barge or the boat that he was on, there was a I don't know, a group of slaves who were shackled together being transported to somewhere down south,
and he says that that site put me in constant misery. Okay, because it tore at his heart, it offended his morals, whatever you want to say. But that was his single only example of why slavery affected him personally. Okay, from the point of view of your cost benefit analysis, that was his only cost that he ever expressed publicly. I actually it wasn't publicly. It was in a letter to his friend, right Steve, but to Joshua Speed. But why
did Lincoln care? Then? What was the Lincoln came out of political obscurity and essentially founded the Republican Party in opposition to the Kansas Nebraska Act of eighteen fifty four, which wanted to sort of leave it up to the people of the territories to decide if they wanted slavery.
It was a magnanimous and statesmanlike offer, a policy offer from Stephen Douglas, because it would have taken the question of the extension of slavery out of Congress and made it, you know, stop tearing the country apart and all that other nice stuff. Perfectly pragmatic and probably even to the level of statesmanlike policy. Lincoln opposed it. Why it wasn't like he was ever going to be forced to own a slave. It probably wasn't even like he was ever going to be a slave. Why would he oppose it?
Well, I think, by the way, I think Lucretia.
A more acute example of this is during the you know, the long transition from the election to his inauguration in March, which remember was in March in those days, and you know, a couple of states voted to secede and along comes Senator Critten. Wasn't he from Kentucky. I think he proposed a compromise to avert a war. And you probably know
what John that critin did. Compromise was essentially to re establish the old Missouri Compromise and allows slavery to be extended out to the west below the Mason Dixon line, probably the states where it was not really gonna work, like you know, New Mexico, later, Arizona, Nevada, those would I don't think.
I don't who knows.
But the point is Lincoln said he drew the line on that he was willing to consider a lot of compromises, but he drew the line on that, and I think you have to ask why did he draw the line there and not other places? And there I think you have to recur to his judgment, which you can quarrel with, because, by the way, it's one of those great what ifs if he ever, if Lincoln had lived, and you could have asked him, you know, was the Civil War worth it for that much death and destruction? And I'm not
sure what answer he would have given. He might have said he kind of yeah, I mean, he kind of said it was necessary and inevitable.
Maybe that's right.
But on the other hand, you know, you just see the wear on his face right alone. Yeah, and moment has four knowledge of these things, John, But I want to go back to the Churchill example and we can draw them together because by the way, you know, you didn't mention the French fleet in our text chats because you were so completely wrong about that, but you didn't mean another example.
Oh yes, all right.
Let's do that through the French fleet example.
So yeah, So what the listeners should know is that Churchill demanded that the French either surrendered their fleet to the British or be sunk.
Uh.
And of course the Germans were saying, no, you got to hand your fleet over to us. We just conquered you remember, and uh, you know, they sent an ultimatum to the commanding admiral of the French fleet, which was what anchored somewhere down in Africa.
I thought it was loose actually, but was it?
I thought it was.
Anyway, this is so obscure compared to the conversation.
Move on. But there is a point to this, which was after the ultimatum was refused, the British Navy opened up and sank the French fleet quite a lot of We killed a lot of French sailors.
That it was an iron It wasn't.
Yeah in Iran, that's right. So uh.
And by the way, the French fleet could have sailed to the United States or somewhere. Look, the point is that struck a huge moral blow. That was when Roosevelt and his people said, you know what the British mean it They actually mean to win this thing. That impressed Franklin Roosevelt enormously, who else, and impressed the French resistance.
You know, they you know, it's very controversial, a lot of propaganda, but the French resistance, and a lot of the French people said, yeah, you know what, De Gaulle are going to free this country again, and they're really serious about going about it.
Uh and so you know.
So my point is moral effect cannot be reduced to cost benefit analysis or utilities.
That's not the best example example.
Well, but pairs with the other one though. Let me finish the other one that John did raise in our text.
Check Well, my example is that.
Okay, but I think they connect. But go ahead.
The example I gave John is, you know, famous the example of Coventry, where by the time that the British and their allies had sufficiently deciphered the German communications through
Enigma and so on. With Ultra, they were able to tell where Germany was likely to bomb inside of Britain, and they got information that the town of Coventry was going to be bombed in the German bombing that on a particular night, and a lot of the people working on Ultra were actually had their families in Coventry, but they knew that if they Churchill knew that if he alerted the people of Coventry that they were about to be bombed that night, because they had deciphered the communications,
then Churchill would know and might not give me Hitler would know, yes, you're right, sorry, Steve, and and might not continue to use those communication channels, which would have a, you know, a very severe impact on how the war
might turn out. And he was left with this awful choice, you know, kill friends, kill family, allow a town to be destroyed, not not somebody else's damn army or navy, the French fleet, but his own people's family, And to set with the the not certain promise that this was going to help him win the war, but a very good likelihood. And he let the town of Coventry be bombed and it was practically destroyed and many many people died. That's not a cost benefit of analysis.
That is not cost benefit in now job. It's obvious. I mean this is so there's two points. One is I wasn't making the claim that the political end is a cost benefit question. Uh, you know, everybody has different political views that they arrive at, you know, not strictly through you know, like pro life versus pro choice. I don't think that's a cost benefit analysis for the people who decide on I think, you know, ends are you come from outside this, it's then how you achieve the
end I think is cost benefit. And that's why I thought you were talking about prudence. Is you're saying, prudence is how you decide how you achieve your ultimate outcome. Because finished Lucretia, I mean, I didn't interrupt you for the last fifteen minutes.
I thought you were.
Oh, I stayed silent. You noticed the whole time because I knew you were making an oration to the people. No, so the no, But the prudence, I thought, the way you guys were talking about does not tell you what your ends are. Doesn't tell you whether you're pro slavery against slavery. It doesn't tell you whether your Calhoun or Lincoln prudence. The way you guys using is how do you achieve the win, as it were?
And then correct but keep going, Okay, well, let it explain.
It to me, because I don't see why prudence would actually tell you what the right moral view is. But putting that aside, then, actually, I think slavery is harder for me than the questions you're raising about war, because in war, the leaders may cost benefit decisions, terrible ones all the time. They have to decide sacrifice, some lives to save others to lose lives in some campaigns because they're there's gonna be a broader strategic benefit. And it
seems to me that's exactly happened in Coventries. Churchill decided he had to sacrifice those lives because he thought that the gains to Britain in the war in the long run were greater from maintaining this intelligence advantage. If they weren't, then he made the wrong decision. It was, but I don't think there's a prudence tell Prudence is a word, doesn't tell you what the right decision is. It's just
you're measuring the benefit. And it's actually, I think clearer in war time than it is on social issues, social domestic issues.
The simple answer I would give to that, John is what you're misunderstanding is the ends. When prudence is brought to bear, the ends informed the means. The ends inform the means so that it's it's it's It makes no sense to say that prudence isn't about ends. Good ends inform good means. What you're tending to think of it as I hate to say, it is a good Machiavellian.
Oh, I love it that's the nicest thing you've said about me in many years.
Well, the means justify the end, ends justify themselves, and the means are appropriate to those ends. I guess you. I'm not really saying it very well.
But well, let me ask you a different question away. Put it is a person with bad means act prudently in your view, I mean, sorry, bad ends that you disagree with. Suppose you're John Calhoun. Are you saying it's impossible for John Calhoun to act prudently?
Yes, I absolutely am, Because.
Then I don't understand what prudence means.
Assumes natural right. I mean, prudence is just a way, a different way of saying natural right. What is ultimately right, everywhere, always, all the time, has to be applied to particular circumstances. What's always right, everywhere, all the time, applied to particular circumstances, may, in the prudential view of the statesman, actually require something that seems to be totally against what is universally right, like,
for instance, allowing slavery to continue. Allowing slavery to continue is an immoral act that goes absolutely against the universal truth of all human beings created equal. So what could possibly justify Lincoln saying, yeah, we're going to leave slavery alone where it is. What could justify Lincoln during the Civil War refusing to extend the Emancipation Proclamation to border states? What justifies that? Why did he not just end slavery everywhere? What under his powers as commander in chief?
So this is what I don't understand, is No, No, I don't understand this, because then you're saying prudence is only a concept that we can apply to people that you think are pursuing the right moral ends, and has
no application really to understanding everybody else. So if say, in our country right now, I'm just making this up, say thirty percent of Americans believe in natural rights as you do, and seven don't, then prudence has no application to those other seventy percent because you have you're saying it only can apply if you think they already have the right moral views and right moral ends, that is.
But if I think it's if they simply do. Okay, it's not what I think it is because it's not relative.
Is right?
But my point is, Okay, so that other seventy percent who you disagree with in terms of their moral views, prudence just doesn't matter. It just doesn't help us understand how they act or how they should act, because.
One could say, I'm not going to say what I think about seventy percent or anything like that. But if if your ends are not determined by justice, if your ends are not determined by what is good, then prudence does not apply. It is something like you you you would call it, John, cause benefit analysis or a Machiavellian approach to things, how best to achieve this particular goal. But if the goal it's self is not just, then
prudence doesn't enter into it. Difficult statesman's job to apply what is naturally right, naturally just to particular situations.
Oh sorry, Can I try it this way, John, and get back to a little bit of abstraction. Then back to some specific examples again. One is is there's never just one end in the mind of a statesman. There's usually a whole lot of ends. There's a hierarchy of ends, and the priority of those hierarchies are subject to judgment and deliberation.
That's a key task of prudence.
So you know, the first the first end in the modern liberal mind, by that I mean classical liberal mind is from your guy Hobbes is self preservation. Right, that's a pretty important end for individuals and for nations. But below that or you know what means you used to self preservation and ah, so your point about coventry is, yeah,
you can make a cost benefit analysis. That Churchill thought, and I think this is the way they thought, is if we surrender at an early point and what's going to be a long war, the small advantage we have an intelligence gathering, we won't have an advantage later when it will be more to our benefit.
Right.
I think that's a conspentific way of putting it right, And but that but let me ask you this.
Let me ring in the second instance that you brought up, which was did you really mean it's John you thought that Churchill should have negotiated an end of the war because look how disastrous it was for written in the end, losing your empire and all that.
If Churchill's view was right, I want to I'm fighting this word for the preservation of the British empire, which was yeah, what he said his goal was.
He did a pretty poor job of that.
If it was for this noble if you think the Churchill was this sort of natural rights warrior, and he wanted to stop the evils of authoritarianism. Then I would say, is a different goal in mind, and maybe it was right to fight to the end, which is what he was saying he would do.
Ah, well, okay, Now the prudent person says, you have two you just stipulate two ends. Good, one was Hitler needs to be defeated. Two I'd like to preserve the British Empire.
Uh.
And one of those ends turns out to be incompatible with the other because the first one. And why did you say it was imperative to defeat Hitler? He said, because, uh, you know, if we don't, I mean, I forget the language that one particular speech where he says, if we don't, if he, if he, if he triumphs over all of Europe, it will begin a thousand years of darkness, which you'll eventually reach the United States, he said, And Roosevelt largely agreed with him in that judgment.
That killer response to you, but go ahead.
Well okay, I'll bet, I'll bet it's wrong, but go ahead, okay.
So can we agree that FDR definitely was not a natural rights guy? I mean his second Bill of Rights, the second Fourth Bill of Rights for freedom stuff. I mean that guy is typical progressive because ther does not believe in natural rights.
It doesn't matter, John, That's not the point. Whether or not you believe in natural rights. Then he's whether your cause is just.
But he can't believe imprudence in the way you say it, because he.
Doesn't care what he believes in. That has not You keep using that as if it's relevant. Who believes in what is not the point. It's what is and what isn't. Whatever else you can say about Roosevelt, and I can say a lot of bad things about him, and often do uh his support ultimately for Churchill and then and then you know, our participation in World War two was
based upon an idea of justice that was that. I think any reasonable person, if they deliberate about it, as Steve was saying, has to understand is absolutely true, we defeat an evil. He doesn't have to believe in natural rights.
Understand. You don't care what other people's self professed moral views are. You're you're just You just care how they advance your moral views of natural law and natural rights. No, because FDR would not have said he belied in natural rights, but you're saying he's acting in a just direction for reasons that he doesn't may not even believe.
We really not look at that what I said and agree to that. Or is this just a relative thing and Hitler one?
Great?
If we didn't great, that's those are your options.
I think what Lucretia is trying to say is that FDR's prudence in the matter was incomplete and partial, and so you know, you give him a c.
I mean, that's one way of putting it. I think I don't think that's I.
Mean, he understood that Hitler was, as the phrase use today, a true existential threat to civilization.
He could figure that out the help.
By the way, I always thought this is an interesting point. Churchill Roosevelt New German. He'd learned it growing up, so he could listen to Hitler's speeches and would comment on them and translate them with And that's one reason why he Rearleon said we should take this guy seriously. He really means all the bad stuff he says or has everybody else had.
Okay, so let me.
Get a totally just a different, different thing. John. There was a thing the other day I saw where a sixteen year old girl had been raped in some barbarian I won't use all the adjectives. I want to use Muslim Islam country, some awful, god forsaken place. She was raped, and so she was stoned to death for committing I don't know. I don't even know. Those people are the greatest source of evil in the world. But anyway, can you I mean, do we say that, Oh, yeah, that's
their view of justice, So that's okay. Are you willing to say that? No?
No, My point is that I could still say that whether they're acting prudently or not, I don't know.
But you have to start with the end. You can't just talk about prudence as something more.
I now have a better understanding of what you guys mean by prudence. My point is that you're making it a very narrow tool then, because it only applies to people you only you only applied in the context of where you think it is advancing natural rights.
Well, I'm not sure understanding that.
No, it's well, I wasn't sure how far.
Let me go back to the Churchill example for a minute and refer you to one of the readings I suggested you ponder. You know a lot of people have said rigionists like John Charmley, David Irving, a very dodgy guy, and even Pap Buchanan in his book The Unnecessary War, Right, you know, he criticized our involvement in World War Two. He said Churchill should have cut a deal, hit or wanted to make a deal, which, by the way, I think is true.
I think there were hints at the time.
And remember he sent that guy over right.
Well, no, that.
Was later, but I mean, you know, there's good evidence that he ordered the German armory to pause at Dunkirk, hoping he could sweet talk the British into making a deal. You know, it was sort of an area and racist thing. They'll leave you guys alone. You can't keep a lot of it. He was going to get very generous terms, and the revisionists, especially guy like David Irving, who's you know, a borderline Holocaust denier and who, by the way, probably faked a lot of his sources in his books. I
don't know if you know that guy's name. He was a big deal thirty years ago. Anyway, Yeah, you know, there was the Italian opening in late May of nineteen forty.
Churchill's in office two weeks it's what's dramatized in the movie A couple of years ago reasonably well, and Churchill said no. And one of the reasons Churchill said no was he had an instinct, which, by the way, there's some survey research John Lukeatch dug up on this that showed that if word got out, well, first of all, all the service chiefs and all the body said, the key thing and us holding out is going to be the morale of the military, which doesn't have any weapons,
and the morale of the people. If word gets out they were even considering a deal with Hitler, morale will collapse and we're.
Done for now.
The reason I use that as a preface is, you know, if you read Churchill's chapter, and I don't know, the only thing may help you at this point, John, you read the end of Churchill's chapter on the Munich agreement, and what he says there is quite interesting.
He says, Look, we can't really I'm paraphrasing here.
He says, we really can't criticize Chamberlain for making the attempt and maybe even making the deal. He might have turned out to be right. He doesn't quite put it that way, and he says and you know, people who have to make decisions in the moment without the hindsight of history later on, you know, they can't know what the right course might be. They might turn out to be right. But then he says this here I will
quote it. There is, however, one helpful guide, namely for a nation to keep its word and to act in accordance with its treaty obligations to allies. This guide is called honor. It is baffling to reflect that what men call honor does not correspond always.
To Christian ethics. That there's a whole book you could based on that.
In fact, that's the epigram to Jaffis first book on Tonism and Aristotelianism.
Here's the point. Churchill said, what we did there was dishonorable. Now my simple question to you, John, is freet natural. For a minute?
Is honor a real thing or not? And is there not something tangible to human beings behaving in honorable ways and taking the idea seriously? In which case Britain would have done the right thing in September nineteen thirty eight. And that's a judgment of prudence. There's more to Churchill says there, But is their thing.
When I asked you guys to provide too much of.
Shakespeare sp Sorry, no, no, I.
Was asking, Remember, I asked you guys provide me with some kind of extended discussion about what prudence is from some of the great philosophers. And you guys pointed me to people like church Show and things like that, and some of Lincoln's statements. But they're not really right. They're not written now is or philosophical attempts right, they're more you were pointing me more, I think, to examples rather than anyone's really thinking it through.
And so it's correct because there's not a formula for this. Sorry, yeah, not a formula.
But doesn't see she's really a fully thought through concept. And that's that I find it really puzzling because all these examples from Churchill, I think you Churchill, you know, he stands as example someone had to make these tough choices where he sacrificed lives in the short term for
the bigger benefit in the long term. But to me, it doesn't reflect on whether his national goals were the right one, and I think I could when it comes to international politics, I have a really hard time applying this idea of prudence if it's defined as things that we really analyze because of its advancement of natural rights. Because I don't think that concept really works in international politics.
I mean that because right and wrong and justin unjust don't exist in international politics or.
The rare they rarely do. Instead, countries are pursuing their own interests.
And that's not what I said. I didn't say whether they believe in it.
I said why, No, I'm not saying whether they believe or not. I'm just saying, that's what nation. You want to talk about, what nations do. Most of the time, they're just trying to expand their own influence. The United States, I think is unusual and that we do try to spread a certain moral ideology in the world. Most countries, like you know, like Great Britain, they're not I don't
think much of their history. They're acting on behalf. They are acting because they're expanding natural rights or want to. They're just expanding the power of the British Empire.
You can say.
Say that, John, that's not what I said.
No, No, I'm not putting any words in. I'm just describing my view and what they did. And then you look at the British Empire, and you say, well, regardless of what they think, what they did or not was either good for natural rights or not.
It's that's good for natural rights. It's either just or unjust rights out. Okay, So it's either just or unjust.
Okay. So how do you decide whether the expansion of the British Empire is just or unjust?
It's a whole lot of things.
I'll just give you one, just one piece of data, which is it bequeathed to the world the largest democracy that exists, which is India. I mean, where do you think India got its political institutions, political culture from.
It got it from the.
Colonizers, as we now say, right, I actually think the British Empire was on net a force for good in the world.
I did too, But they did lots of bad things too. They violated a lot of naturites at the same time. Say that's true too. So how do you decide whether Lincoln.
Well, you know, there's a I could I could quote, I could quote one of the great utilitarians, John Stuart Mill on.
That point, but I won't.
The nations, when they pursue their self interests, whether for whatever reason they do it. You're making them an You judge them on whether they were acting justice, and then only when they're acting justly do you compute what they're doing with this idea of prudence. Justly. Then prudence doesn't really.
Apply if you really want to make it formulaic. And Steve's right, it's not formulaic, but it's a cost benefit analysis all of the time. It becomes prudence when good means are followed to good ends, and that and the reason prudence is a difficult concept is because it's not always possible to just follow a straight, formulaic cost benefit analysis to those ends. Sometimes you have to make which is why I gave you the example that I gave as stark as it is. You have to make really
tough choices that are not just cost benefit analysis. Well, I mean, from the point of view of a human being, I would rather save my family than I would necessarily save Western or Western civilization from Nazis. Right, But so you're making it something something You're trying to remove justice from the equation. What's just in that situation You can only know by deliberation, as Steve said, and by trying to figure out how you do the most good while
doing the least amount of evil in a situation. That's not utilitarianism because good and evil don't matter.
Yeah, let me see if I can being drawing us to a conclusion with a couple of short observations.
One is.
This is an important point, just to make it crystal clear, there isn't a formula for this. Churchill himself said prudence can't be taught. He said it can be armed. And my argument to you, John, as you're showing up unarmed to many of these circumstances. And here's why second point, Economists and lawyers are alike in this way. Lawyers like bright line rules, they like, you know, clarity, and you
like to refine the law and so forth. Economists like a number, They like to be able to reduce things to a quantitative calculation. Our argument is is that prudence can't be reduced to either one of those things. And that's why that's why Jaffa used to say, and this is where Walter Burns agreed with him. By the way, Jaffa's a version of it was the proper study of political science would be the close study of the deeds
and speeches of great statesmen. So, by the way, prudence doesn't I mean, I don't even think prudence applies to calculations of colonization of the British Empire, except in certain cases like should we get.
Out of India after the war? And right.
In other words, to put a mundane example, to decide whether a new road should be three lanes in each direction or only two lanes in each direction, that really is something that you know, what's the end, You want the traffic to flow freely. That's not really a matter of that is, that doesn't involve any necessity of prudence or genius on the part of a decision maker, and they might get it wrong, and so you're stuck in traffic, and that's not the end of the world.
Would be the end of the world. Go ahead.
And then one point I want to add is that nothing about prudence is a guarantee that the actions of a statesman acting prudentially will guarantee success. That's the difference. But again, Steve probability, Steve's Steve's example is a good one in that case, it doesn't matter that much. But you know what if the statesman trying to balance that the different means to the to the end chooses this or that. There's no guarantee that the statesman will be successful.
And what defines prudence in that that process? I guess you could say is that the statesman was acting according to what was just and right. One could say according to his conscience, but only if his conscience was informed by what was just and what was right. That doesn't matter when you're planning out a highway, and that doesn't
matter in some case. Is in the international scene, when you really are talking about, you know, the the ultimate what's good for this particular country's you know, extinsion or non extinction, whatever those things might be. A statesman acting with prudence could be an ultimate failure at achieving that goal, right, but not a failure if that statesman did not abandon the principles that were guiding him along the way. Am I making sense, Steve Well?
I was just going to say, I was going to mark you down as undecided.
John.
I think you've made it worse because now you're arguing against clarity and against you. Of course, we are more abnormous and difficult to.
Understand because it's not easy.
And then I don't understand your view about how to learn it is not through education but through repeated practice. Is that what?
It's the only way you can begin to appreciate it is, you know, as I said, close study of the great deeds and words of statesmen.
I mean why, I mean that honor question from minute?
Why is it that the human imagination is still captivated? I want to share one more Churchill quote, but the preface is why are people still captivated by you know, the three hundred Spartans who held out against the Persians?
Right?
We make movies about it, we still talk about it. Why do we still read and draw lessons from the elite in the Odyssey? Why do we talk about what's what's the Roman battle where the legion goes in knowing you're going to be wiped out, but they say that's their honors at stake?
That can I? Can I? How do you just pronounce that one?
Right?
Can I? The Battle of can I?
Right?
And why that?
The joke now and the memes are why you know young all right, young men who think a lot about the Roman Empire?
Well, why are they doing that? Well?
I should have actually given you the last two sentences of that Churchill passage from the Gathering storm when I say, you know, honor would have.
Led us the right way.
Here's how he explained it. And this, I think Lucretia gilds the point you just made an exaggerated code of honor leading to the performance of utterly vain and unreasonable deeds could not be defended. However fine it might look. That's a rejection of pure principle.
John right here.
However, next sentence, the moment came when honor pointed the path of duty, and when also the right judgment of the facts at that time would have reinforced its dictates. You may know, John, by the way that we now
know subsequently it was true. But there was some intelligence at the time that the German military was about ready to revolt against Hitler because they had had it with his reckless aggressiveness, and if the British and the French had stood up to Germany over Czechoslovakia, they were going
to stage a military coup against him. And it was after Hitler once again correctly judged the weakness of the Western statesman that the military said, well, I guess we just have to fall in behind this guy now, after which, of course Hitler ruthlessly rooted out any generals he couldn't trust, right, But I would like to propose closing by paraphrasing Kamela Henderson saying that at least Lucretia and I our values have not changed.
So can we just bring this back around for a quick moment to what the point was here, which was that the analogy between Lincoln's approach to the question of the abolition of slavery and Seth Dillon's approach. And by the way, let me just say, just in case, on some miracle, Seth Dillon is listening to this, he posted yesterday on Twitter that he does, in fact believe that we should be voting for the person who's likely to do the most good.
Oh okay, right, you know he.
It was at the end of a long tweet, and so I think he does understand. I know that one of the reasons that Lincoln was successful in moving public opinion toward the abolitionist view, toward the idea that slavery was a moral evil, all of those things was because, in fact that part of his coalition included those radical abolitionists. Trump's coalition has to include those people that are radical.
I don't think of it radical at all. It's my position that all abortion should be completely illegal in all circumstances. In rape, I don't believe that if you an unborn child should pay for the sins of its father. So okay, But you know, I'm not as vocal about it as some people are. Those people have a role to play in moving the country's public opinion more and more to the idea that abortion is a great moral wrong. Right now is I think one of you pointed out, No,
the country as a whole does not believe that. The country as a whole did not necessarily believe that. Certainly the South didn't believe that in eighteen fifty four. How do you get people moving in that direction, and how do you get the political establishment moving in that direction? Do you elect Kamala Harris because you're pissed off at Trump because he's in favor of IVF and not necessarily going to push hard for a national abortion a band
constitution constitutional amendment. Excuse me, that makes no sense. That's what we learn from Lincoln, That's where we learn where prudence applies in this case. How do you ultimately get to the place in this country where abortion is considered an absolutely immoral wrong, and it can be outlawed across the board everywhere and all the time. You're not going to do that by voting in Kamala Harris.
Yeah, that I'll bet you probably out never mind, why don't we Why don't we move to our usual closing order with you have some Babylon be's handing the p I.
Do, although I'm trying to keep up with John because he's good. He's a lawyer. He's good at these arguments.
You know, That's why I tend to win.
Well, we'll see, we'll see. What what do you think my policies might be? Kamla asks CNN's Dana Bash during interview. Tim Walt spends entire CNN interview making balloon animals to distract attention from Kamala Harris. By the way, I just want you guys to know that I've now had about five some of them. I think you've gotten, Steve, about five different people who point out to me whenever somebody else uses the term kambel amma ding dong.
Yes, right, so it's catching on.
It's catching John uh strong capable woman asked man to come with her to job interview in case they ask any hard questions.
Yeah, that was good.
Yeah, we're long. So this is an example of Seth Dylon. This is on Babylon B. Pro lifers criticized for asking pro life candidates to support pro life policies, and so that gives you an idea of where they're coming from. Last one, just because I can't help it, we didn't even talk about this whole controversy with Trump going to Arlington National Cemetery. By the way, I have placed to wreathe myself on the soldier on the tomb of the unknown soldier, and I am not a former president or
a current president or anything like that. I saw a bunch of people put you know, he shouldn't be doing that. This is only for current presidents to do. Well, I've done it, and I'm neither. Kamala solemnly places joy sticker on tomb of marine killed in Afghanistan.
Oh I already hate to laugh at that, but that's yeah, that was right.
In case anybody missed it. By the way, that whole crap about not being able to take pictures at Arlington National Cemetery for political campaigns and all that, it's crap, and it's they were the left was so embarrassed by Trump's success in going to Arlington, you know, at the request of the families and so on. They've been trying everything they can to try to undermine that story. But anyway, okay, I'm gone.
All right, John send us out.
Well, I don't know how much we have left.
Oh well, well sign off.
Rather than drink your whiskey meat, because we don't wait for something to replace a bid.
I've got a couple of suggestions which I haven't got handy unfortunately, because you know, I'm running behind them and traveling and I don't actually have the right ending. So how about I just do this, uh and say, to paraphrase Kamala Harris, our ending has not changed.
We'll see you next.
Week when we'll get back to talking about uh, you know, uh our ordinary subjects of you know, politics, law and all the rest of that. And we'll stop trying to tutor forge on you or torture for John too. Whatever we're doing, we're doing something.
He's not tortured. Look at him, grinning like.
I'm just I'm please thinking about all the hot dogs I'm going to get for this.
Right by you, guys, Hey.
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