It's been a while since I did the blackface for Halloween, Halo. And welcome to episode number 90 of Unrelenting. I was just looking at them like, Wow, we're going to have our big 100th celebration soon, and that will be January 12th. my God. You've figured that out already? Yeah, January 12th. You know, unless we double up on a few shows. And if you want to get it in by the end of the fiscal 2023, But it looks like it's not going to be until 2024.
Moving episode 100 wouldn't be hard enough for the next two months for somebody not to be missing a show. That would be you. You're going somewhere? I'm not going anywhere. I mean, this was all just a bet. Adam Curry said You can never do 100 episodes of a show with Gene. I can totally see that, too. The stakes must be high for that one. You will never last. Let me tell you, my friend. 100 episodes with Tim and Gene. I don't think 100 is is particularly hard.
I think every podcast I've done has gone over a hundred. It's just between 102 hundred is when things happen. Have you ever had a show with a co-host that went over 100? No. God, no. I mean, right there. That's I'm friends. I've never had a co-host until you. How do you finally decided you needed this? Well, that's okay. Okay. That's technically not true. I did have five co-hosts on my first ever podcast at one time. Or were they rotating? Yeah, one time.
And then you realize that the panel shows are just way too confusing. Well, no, I had a rule at the beginning of the show, and the reason I had five people on rotating, it was a tech podcast. It was, you know, information security related. you were trying to be. Leo Laporte. No, but who was the guy? There was actually somebody that was doing a really good tech show back then, but there was like literally two of them. And I thought, okay, I don't have enough crap to talk about. I really.
wait, you didn't. So you had enough going on that you would be able to carry a show? Well, I would run out of interesting topics. Let's put it that way. I could react. I just couldn't. I didn't imagine that I would, you know, just be excited about talking to a microphone every week. I'm not a fucking introvert. Okay? Really? So, yeah, really. So. So my idea was the more people I have signed up, the less likely nobody is to show up. I get it.
So this is kind of like if you invite ten friends, you leave for the party. Right? Yeah. So. And that's what I did. And it was exactly as predicted. So there was some shows where it was literally the six of us and everybody could, you know, chill for a while And while other people are talking and then do your 5 to 10 minutes and then you're done.
But there was also in interest interspersed between those episodes were episodes where there was only three of us that were there, just me and a couple other guys. Then, you know, everybody had their own little more time. But my what I told everybody as a rule for me was I will not do more than one show solo. So y'all had better show up and everybody can miss some shows because we get enough people. But you can't have everybody missed two shows in a row.
And so that went on for, I think a year and a half until it finally came down to until it came down to where I did one episode solo. And I was not happy about that. And I let everybody know it's like, guys, what the hell? Nobody showed up. And then the next episode, I think only two people said they would and they didn't. And I was like, Okay, we're done. That's the end of the show. The interest level had waned. Yeah, Yeah, it was.
Whether it was interest level or whether it was simply just random work, busy occurrences where people, you know, didn't didn't have this is higher priority is either barely podcasts. Our work well, I mean work ish and especially for married people because I was one of those back then and so was everybody else, which is, you know, you wanted to lock yourself in the basement and, well, everybody, I think we were doing him. I want to say we were recording in like 7 p.m. on Thursdays or something.
So it was certainly conceivable that of five people on any random Thursday there would be at least four wives angry at them that you should have a full deck of people ready to talk. Well, not if the wife's like you haven't taken the trash out once. We're playing with your stupid, you know, podcasting crap. This thing will never last. He didn't pass. He said he didn't want to hear that in the background. Well, I heard that, and. But. Yeah, right, exactly. But guys, say those perverts again.
I'll be back and I'll be back next week. I gotta go. Right, Right. No, no, That's how that stuff works. But, yeah, it's a it's not a I don't think I've ever met or talked to anyone. Spouse who thought podcasting was a productive activity. Lousy. That that would be bad them. And now maybe your spouse is right after of say something different because this is literally your job so she can expect you to be doing it making money. Yeah we bring everybody else. Yes I can't buy the Lego.
Things go poorly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, maybe have you thought about buying like Lego podcast studio for her? Did you do that? Can you just build one bit of Lego microphones up, build your own podcasting studio and pretend that you're on the Internet? Well, I would imagine the Lego version probably costs more than $1,000. well, more than the actual version. It's funny that the Lego version of the Electric Voice are E20 is $800. Where? Yeah, right. The actual Ari dwelling is only 500.
It's a bargain. Well, you understand there's a licensing fee involved. So first the customer, you got the licensing fee, and then there's people that have to figure out how to build it with what pieces. But I'm pretty sure a computer does that in about 2 minutes. Then, you know, that is what I would think. So I can't understand why they're not pumping out more sets, even if they're in the unofficial manner owned Lego or the Independent.
You know, I believe they're still independently owned and still headquartered in Billund over in Denmark. So I think they're still a family owned enterprise. I could be more privately held company. So they're not publishing financials either. And they're making a lot of money on little plastic. They're owned by Chris Christensen for a while they said, you know, we're going to try to make our bricks without using all that bad, evil oil.
And then they went, that's not working well for us, so we're just going to keep doing it. Well, I'm looking at their revenue chart that I'm pulling out from Forbes magazine. Holy shit. Yeah, right. There's money and then a where their own business. We should be making little plastic bricks. Okay. Compared to 2003. Right. So that was ten or 20 years ago. How much more profit do you think they're making now than they were in 2003?
I don't know the percentage, but I do think that's been around forever. But yes, well, they again floated under Kohl's. Their profits are 1,000% up. That's a pretty good percentage. And there is a Lego's idea website. Net Net just posted a link to the professional recording studio. So, yeah, there's a there's already a Lego version with the little people, like doing music recording. But we want to do, like, a real Well, yeah.
For your wife, which is something that they're doing a little bit more now with things like floral arrangements, things that if you walk into the room in the show that they do, there's a reality show and they're doing versions everywhere. I mean, not everywhere, but the United States, Australia, New Zealand, the UK. I think they started and then stop and then there's a bunch of that aren't in the English language, so I'm not even sure how many exist there.
But there's multiple different Lego shows where people compete and on a couple of them I thought one of the best competitions was they had a fake room, like a fake office. And the contest, the thing you had to do was pick an item to recreate that a person that they would bring in and who didn't know what was real and what was Lego. They give them like a minute to look around the room and you know, they can't go in right up to it and touch it. They're looking at it from a few feet away.
But the trick is, you know, can you fool people? Can you make something? And so this would be exactly that. Like, look, can you take the r e 20 microphone and the microphone stand? Can you make this out of Lego at, you know, ten, 15 feet away? Somebody wouldn't be able to tell that from the original and and so this is a whole different thing from when we were kids. It was like you built little square cars and buildings and you played with the little mini figures.
Now it's like they're their profits are up over €1,000,000,000 from last year. Damn, even I knew they exploded under COVID. I was not aware that this is still rocketing. The Taylor Swift residence days, they've only had the one year where their sales went down over the last 20 years. That's pretty impressive for 2017. Why? Why would people not buy more in 2017? I don't know what happened in 2017. That's a good point.
Their sales were flat up until about 2007 and that seems to be one of the big revival started, maybe where they start making more stuff for adults. And I think that was really what instead of, again, the little toys that you would just make little things and play with his kid. Yeah, the $20 kids for your kids right now it's the $700 Titanic. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
You know, and there's these things that are just quite impressive when you look at them, including they figured out the Gen-Xers were now financially capable of wasting more money because they're nostalgic. Right. Well, that's it. The wife had to have the Pac-Man set they came out with, which is a miniature version of like a Pac-Man arcade game back in the day. And there's a little prank on it that the little Pac-Man and Dots move around the know. Yes, do it. It is wild with this.
I've never seen this. Okay. I'll have to check out a video later. But they have done the Atari, the the Nintendo, the base unit video games that you played back in the day that you can now make out of Lego to sit on the shelf. And I that one I'm like, why don't we just buy a an actual Atari to sit on the shelf if you want to use that. Yes. There you go. You know, I guess it's cool to be like, well, that's why.
But I'm surprised that I mean, but obviously Lego's doing really well, so maybe I'm not surprised doing well. They're not pushing the thing because I bought the wife a couple of and they have different art sets and they were on sale at Amazon. So if you get something on, say, a Lego, really, that's another reason their profits are sky high. You look at the Lego store, they really rarely put anything on sale, but they make these. They don't need the if there's a demand, right.
And they make these art sets that are basically pixel art because they give you the big square, I tell you, be able to buy a whole bunch of Legos garage sales. When the economy crashes, they'll be like, you'll, you'll be able to put. Yeah, five bucks for nothing on some of these. They're like early Star Wars sets if you can find them still in the box sell for like 20, $30,000. Yeah. Yeah. So let me let again everything's a little crazy when it comes to collectible stuff, but crazy.
Especially spaceships, of course, the virtual spaceships especially. But the ark Lego things, which I'm not a huge fan of because you're basically just making pixel art because they give you a bunch of little round pieces, right in different colors. And again, if you're right up on it, you can tell that Lego, but you get 20 feet away and you're like, Wow, that's pretty cool. They had these Batman sets, the Jim Lee Batman sets, which are like 90 bucks a piece.
Got two of those because then you can combine them and make bigger artwork. So the wife made Taylor Swift on the Lego art. Wow. And I mean, I think it looks pretty damn good. And I was surprised I went to the Amazon review page because Amazon lets reviewers upload photos and there were no photos with them like, you know, this would sell because the Taylor Swift fans, as I've learned, are nuts when it comes to the merchandise.
I would think that if you would put that on that Lego page, on the review page, anybody that sees it would be like, yeah, I'm buying that. They probably can't afford licensing for her. I don't think you would need the licensing though, if it's fan mail, you Of course you would if in a review, I mean, for them to play around the bar in their review, you know, for them to put it in the box, that's what I'm saying.
If they want to sell a box specifically to make, but the box you can make anything out of because of the colors that are included and people are making. Taylor Swift, you don't if you're Lego and you can't get the licensing, that's cool. But why don't you then post a few reviews of those people making those images? You could do that if they've seen stuff like that, and I would think that would be the selling thing. It's like, No, no, this box here, this is a dumb generic.
You can make a floral arrangement. I mean, you know what? This actually is the right. What do you mean? Like slightly modern stitching, right? this is it. This is exactly what it is. So art, Yeah. You want to buy the pattern? And in this case, people are giving away the patterns for free. Some people sell this stuff, you know, but it's like five bucks. Although, again, you make it on Photoshop yourself. I heard. No, it's not.
Well, that's why there has to be an AI that allows you to put in whatever you want, especially with the artwork, because that's all just pixel.
But I'm surprised that that doesn't exist yet because I would love to build a Lego Comiskey Park back as it was when I start going to ball games back in 1977 and I would not mind building one fairly large, you know, make it, you know, I don't care if it's $500, $1,000 worth of pieces, whatever it is, and there's no easy way to be like, I want to make this. What pieces do I need? Because you're not really you're not able to do anything that sell the pieces by color.
They do sell pieces by color, but there's different sizes, there's different shapes, there's all sorts of different things. Now, you could probably figure it out if you just sat there. I mean, I'm looking at the map man picture and all that would be super easy to do. It is just the Pac-Man. Yeah. No, the. The Batman. the Batman. Yes, the Jim Lee one. Yeah. Just do the poster. I filter in Photoshop and reduce it to a very small resolution.
However, remember pixels across and up and down and then spread it out a bit mowed. And I mean, that's literally all it is. And then you match the Lego color and it tells you exactly how many pieces you need and it spits it out and it ships it to you and all of a sudden, Bob's your uncle, you're making money. Yeah, exactly. It's like I it took her like probably two days to put this thing together because I was. Yeah. And it's piece by piece.
It's pixel by pixel, which I'm like, Do you really like doing this? And she's like, You have to relax. And so I'm like, I guess that's good for me. I would be, can can somebody just do this for me? And maybe that's the exit strategy. Maybe that is like build a Taylor Swift art the wife, buy a fully built logo. Well, just to have right to have it, somebody just ship it to you already put together. Yeah, you probably could do an Etsy thing where you you sell people a Lego set in an art frame.
Yes. Completed. Right. Ready a lot of money. And you start off by them just sending you a photograph of who they want. Yeah, that would be easy as well. I mean, that would be you. Once you go through the process once or twice, it'd be a no brainer part and it would still be the longest part would still be and doing. But you probably hired some Vietnamese people to do that first, right? Like so cents an hour. And you probably get knockoff Legos in China anyway. yeah. Yeah.
So you probably do the whole thing. Turn around for under 30 bucks. Sell it for 1200. Well, I was going for a thousand. I was getting greedy. Well, yeah, a little bit. But custom Lego photograph art. I mean, as a one off, you could do somebody like a Taylor Swift without really raising any red flags. Right. We want to do a whole series of Taylor Swift. Right. That be that'd be different right.
You have to like if you're if you're making a hundreds of sets and selling them not so much if you like created this as a one you can sell your image of Taylor Swift. You can't sell logos because they have Taylor Swift on them. And you also can't make it so specific that somebody can tell what photographic came from. If you're basing it from a photo, because that was the whole Andy Warhol prints thing. Where exactly? Because then you'd be ripping off the artists that took the photo.
it's a weird world, isn't it? No, it's not. But you're sounding good. Total sense. And we took a poll and I mean, nobody was surprised about this poll. no agenda social, especially not the people that put the third option. I know. I knew the third option was going to win. I just wasn't sure. Jesus Christ, how far down that was going to go. How about the third option was the option was where does Gene's audio quality sound the best? And I included clips or links to clips.
I'm like unrelenting just two good old boys, which is the show he does with the dude named Ben named Ben. And the last choice was, quote, I wouldn't listen to Gene if you paid me. 48% went with. I would not listen to Gene even if you paid me, although I will say I'm surprised that was under the majority that that was under 50%. Unrelenting. 33%. Just two good old boys. 19%. So you see, I told you, you sound better here. That was the point of this.
Yeah, I think that just represents the breakdowns and the number of total listeners is all that there were more people. Either I gave them the option to go listen to your other podcast. You don't do that, dude. Come on. Everybody was like, You sound too quiet on the other show to quiet that. Yeah, it's because I'm using proper head room instead of flattening out into two decimal range. Now you're supposed to man. That's. How do you ever listen to talk radio back in the day, man? It's got to be.
Yeah, I listen to NPR. No, see, that's the problem. Okay? That's how my podcasts always sound. Let me go into NPR mode. Yeah. If you're not putting on good headphones when you're listening to me, then that's your problem. That's not on me. You have Gene recommends these $15,000 headphones that he sent us 15,000, but at least get a reference set, for Christ's sake. You got to hear Gene in all of his glory. Buy good headphones, nice amplifier. But then that would be the the NPR.
Don't use your iPhone amp, for Christ's sake. You're listening to Unrelenting. Do not listen on your iPhone. The audio quality is way superior than what you can get out of your iPhone. You must go to a reference system. This is. Yeah, but you do not want to listen to podcasts on your mobile device. You know, never do that. Do not know what it's for. Do not fall into that trap that the convenience of your phone is where you want to listen to these shows.
It is not, you know. And don't use earbuds. No, no, earbuds are horrible. Well, I mean, there's there's two types of customer. All the earbuds squeeze them right now. I like the what is is there a difference in what they call the earbuds that have the foam type thing that give you a good feel when they go in and the ones that just like sit in your ear like you used to get and maybe you still do with the iPhones and that that they did not have the part that went into your ear with the rubber.
They just kind of like set in your ear. Yeah. I think everybody calls both of those earbuds, but they're very different things. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. the question I don't know. That's a good point. That says in order to hear Jean correctly, you need to be wearing one of those ponchos. That's the only way to listen to one relenting. Are you wearing your partner of the show? Yeah. Which you put your reference headphones on under the. Yeah. Put your poncho on and put your headphones on.
The only way to go. But I figured unrelenting would win. To be fair, it was only 27 people and it varied greatly. I think the two were tied at one point, and I don't know if anybody actually listen to the audio quality on any of them. And I think some of the people there was somewhat biased poll because. Yeah, well, people would have to be subscribed to you to see it. Well, this is true or somebody would have had to boast it. Only 27 people that respond did.
So, I mean, when you think about that, that's only like 13 people who said they wouldn't listen to you if that they were paid in my next my next poll was going to be, well, here's $10 when you listen to Jean's pod. and see if they're liars, because if they say yes, they're told most people with like, yeah, that that's true.
Yeah. And I have way more than 13 people a day bring by back to your house and no agenda social So there was more than 13 people a day that brought iced tea to your home that would no that's tomorrow. Well that's See it was nice that you felt so sad. Sadie got confused when I said that. That's Saturday. He's like, What? You're not doing the podcast Friday? I'm like, No, I'm not getting my iced tea until Saturday. It's nice. He gave the iced tea guy a Friday off.
I know right now you went to training. You always make me work on the weekends. That's that's even better. You got to be here on Saturday. Come on. As I got, people are bitching down here. You got to come on Saturday, man. I can't have you showing up at the middle of Friday. The Trader Joe's thing, The wife went to use her gift card, which he's been sitting on because we don't go to Trader Joe's. There's not one I don't either.
I go there four times a year because they're right next to my doctor's office. So when I go in for a prescription refill thing, that's why I stop there. Interesting, because that's where she stopped it, the one that was by the retina guy and also right by the candy store that my mom prefers. See you, Candy. And like it really? Is it any better than the the other brands, you know, Fannie Mae or whatever it is, is pretty good. I'll give them that. They have some interesting flavors.
Doesn't go to the Mars outlet store. No, I do not believe so. Although we used to have in the town over here part A, it was like the kind of the rejects or the, you know, probably the day old for Fannie Mae. But it was if the candy came out and it didn't look exactly perfect, this is where it wound up, which was probably like 20% of all the candy that goes down their lines. And the stuff was being sold for like a third of what you would buy.
Yeah, the normal ones, when it's like it tastes exactly the same people. Why would you ever buy non fucked up candy ever again? I don't really see you buy the one candy for other people and then you buy the other one for yourself. Drew. Drew. That's the main difference. You want it to look good if giving it as a gift, not a mess. Yeah, You don't want those chips, cordials and that stuff down. You don't care what it looks like now, which you went into Trader Joe's and like.
So did you get the do you get the Thanksgiving stuffing flavored popcorn? And she's like, No, that sounds disgusting. No, but I saw people writing about it. I'm like, That sounds delightful. I like stuffing. She doesn't, though. She gets so aggravated that we stopped at the other trader Joe's on the way home and she ended up liking these stuffing popcorn. I'm like, See, really? That's that's amazing. The oddity. I mean, that really the oddity.
But it's like if you were to ask what it tastes like, I don't know if I would have been able to verbalize it quite well. But I read somebody on Reddit who said it tastes like funny and flavored popcorn. And I'm like, Yes, that makes sense. I'm like, I never realized Funyons have those same kind of flavors as your onions. That you're right, the good you got the onion, but it's all celery, little bit of celery kind of dill.
Kind of, Yeah. Yeah. Rosemary, Whatever's in there, I'm like, of that makes sense. So it tastes like a Funyuns flavored popcorn, But you went and got, like, three bags of groceries, like $8,000? Yeah. 233 or two, 37 or something like that. Yeah. This is not three bags. Yeah. And you're like, no booze. No booze. One steak in there, no lobster, nothing. That was just. Yeah, the single most expensive thing was a $25 steak. That was everything else was under like 12 bucks. Was it a filet?
All that was it for you. I figured with you. Yeah. Which is like the cheapest filet you can. This. I understand people like who fancy. I'm like, That's not a fancy store. Trader Joe's is like an off brand discounter. They have nothing that's brand name in there. Everything is Trader Joe's brand. A lot of people don't know. It branched off of Aldi back in the day. Yeah, and Aldi is the cheapest store. It's like cheaper than going to the 7-Eleven. It's evening out though.
The wife says Aldi is pricing itself. They charge for parts. Well you have to put the quarter in or the slug if you have a slug. I mean come on. But the pricing on the stuff where it used to be, they were quite a bit cheaper on the things that they had on should shipped from Germany, Germany, sterling Now, okay, well, who cares about the Germans? We had to eat here because that used to be the place. If you wanted a bag of salad, the local Meyer would be like 239 and all these like $0.79 boss.
And for that, you know, you're getting a decent savings. They have equalized quite a bit. But I saw something that I didn't know if this was the case or if you had ever tried this or anybody listening to the unrelenting show has ever tried. The Trader Joe's stores have something where if you asked, they will let you sample almost anything in the store. I've never heard of that. I had never will. I don't shop there either. But I mean, obviously you go there at least four times a year.
Yeah, it's something you got to try the next time. And this was on Reddit or someplace like that. But the person that wrote about it said they were looking at like one of the expensive chocolate bars because they're like, should I splurge? Should I get it? And they're like, an employee came up in like, you know, you should ask to sample that if you're not sure if if you want it. And they're like, what? And they like, yeah, you can pretty much sample anything.
And they're like, you know, and here's the beautiful thing for the employee. Whatever. You know, you take your little bit off and try and it goes into the breakroom. So the employees love that. It's like, So you're not going to piss off the employees going, Hey, can I, can I try that expensive chocolate? I'll have to remember to do that next time. Yeah, I just want to see one, what the reaction would be and to what the limits are as you just take an employee down the aisle of.
Yeah, I'd like to try that. Yeah. Like to try that. Yeah. That I would like to try that. I have a shop and I'd like to try these. Yeah. It's like to try a little bit of all these things. Yeah. What do you say?
And I won't say that one thing that at least they used to have a reputation for because even Jesse talked about it is Trader Joe's used to have very good pricing in wine like you could often get a amid midst here wine for low tier wine pricing or high tier wine for mid-tier pricing, which you could you know, the only other store that that would be similarly priced would be Costco and Costco.
At least around here, you don't even want to go because you go and I get it around the holidays and that you're like, wow, it's way too crowded. I don't want to deal with this. Well, the wife and I hate the crowds. So it's like you would start out like, okay, let's do this. You know, let's go on a random Tuesday at 1030 in the morning because it'll be empty. Nope. Still the same. Like it never stops around here. Now, I don't know why, Because the pricing isn't that much better. It really isn't.
It's just they force you to buy bigger quantities, right? You know, And if you have a big family, I get it. You're probably doing well. Yeah. Yeah, I. I have a hard time not throwing away some food that I buy. Just a regular grocery store. But I stopped my Costco membership, like, eight years ago or something because I found myself like you couldn't spend less than 200 bucks for groceries, but I'd end up throwing away about a third of them every single time.
Can't eat that much shit with one person, right? Or you try to put it in the freezer and then it never works. No, it's just like your eyes go. I want. I want that chicken chicken on feed five people, you know, and then you get a bunch of other stuff. The only stuff that obviously lasts a long time you don't worry about. It's like this snacky stuff, like pistachio nuts, right? Is then instead of eating the whole bag like you do, that.
So the normal grocery stores, you buy a bag that's four times bigger and hopefully it takes you four times longer. You know, you want to splurge? No. Well, trust me from personal experience, do not eat too many pistachios. They have a binding capability, no other way around. an opening up of capability. I want to clear things through. By all means, eat a lot of pistachios. No. Net net, is that right? Net net says that Aldi bought Trader Joe's in 1979. I thought that was when Aldi split.
It's always been the story that I had heard that Aldi, the brothers, decided that they were going to split and one of them went to the Trader Joe's route and the other one went to Aldi. I don't think they're not combined. I know now. So you say they bought, but I don't think they may have bought Trader Joe's when one of the maybe Trader Joe's may have existed when the Aldi brothers, whoever, whatever they are, the names of them folks are when they broke up.
But that could that would make sense maybe that the guy that was the one Aldi brother, that's like, I'm not going to be Aldi anymore. Why? The company called Trader Joe's and I don't know. I mean, but yeah, they're the thing with Trader Joe's people have not been there is like Aldi. It has all brands you've never heard of, right. Like Trader Joe's days. yeah, exactly like Trader Joe's. And I can't believe they got crap for that when the when the wokeness really kicked in.
Although the Wokeness is having a a moment of backlash. Finally. But that according remember, according I said this before, according to a book written by some friends of mine, this is the year for the very extreme of the wokeness and things should be swinging back, starting with next year.
Well, starting to smoke is called alum because you're seeing this with some of the folks that are supporting Hamas and the far left people who are getting canceled, which is something that didn't exist before the left invented it.
I'm like, that's kind of ironic, Well, I mean, everybody, including the current administration, is getting into trouble with this stuff because they just I don't know if you saw they just put out a a new executive order for nondiscrimination against the Arabs or something or non discrimination against Muslims. Right. But whatever it is, A bad timing. B, you can't do that. You can't isolate one religion and say, yeah, we're going to have a non discrimination against this group.
This is always a problem with the ADL. It's like, you can't do that for Judaism either. You you really have no business as the government, especially as the government, but even as a private group like that for focusing on something because it makes you look like you're an elitist asshole. Well, they are. Well, they are. But clearly what happened is when the whole Israeli situation started off, there was a big, big set of lobbyist reminders saying, So, you know, all that money we gave you?
Yeah, this is why we we expect the US to step in and make things good and which they definitely Biden started going down that path went further than most Democrats even expected them to. And then I think that the pollsters started seeing the backlash and the numbers associated with that. The under 30 demographic. And they're like, my God, like 80% of them support Hamas. And this while they probably say they support Palestine, but there's no real difference.
So, yeah, remember, Hamas is the legitimate government of Gaza slash Palestine, right? They voted them in. That's what they wanted. These are this is like saying, well, yes, but, you know, the the Republican Party doesn't speak for America, right? Well, it speaks for enough America that they have a majority. Right. You're speaking for a majority of the people. No. Yeah. So this whole distinction between Hamas and Palestinians is an artificial one.
Well, and the certainly not all Palestinians have killed somebody, but neither has every member of the elected government there. Hamas killed somebody either. Like there are exceptions we can imagine for these lawmakers like Talib, who are out in full support of Hamas. Imagine somebody came out and said, you know, the Proud Boys are pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. What would happen there? Well, what I mean, again, it's all. What about is it when it comes to that? But you have to go, well, let's.
Is this balanced correctly? Do we you know, if you have freedom of speech, then you can't be. And this is the this is the stupidity of the left is they've never expected or wanted freedom of speech. They just want to quell everybody else. Right. They want to squash. Where's your. Yeah, there's their speech. Well, squash, whatever this is because they're they, they don't pretend to be in support of freedom of speech.
They're in support of, of their outcome of their equity, not even equality in the Biden administration coming out with the whole. we have we have to really break down and get rid of all this Arab hate. It's like so this this comes right after a bunch of Arab or Muslim. I can't remember which one it was. I think it was Arab. Okay. But. Right. You know, again, the optics of the Jewish people are under fire literally at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And you're going to come out with this.
It's like it makes zero sense. But as you said, separating anybody. Yeah, including the LGBTQ, it's like this does not make you safer. But again, this is not about like Arabs in the Middle East. This is this is the only thing that they can do as the US government is made laws relating to US people that they won't enforce anyway.
And so they're essentially saying, yeah, they are saying the the Arab population of the US, we're going to single them out for a higher level of protection than the Jewish population of the United States, which actually is getting death threats right now. Okay. Doesn't make a lot of sense, Joel. I tell you what, that was a misunderstanding.
They're sure as hell making sure that they're going to have to work way harder cheating in order to win the next election because the donations coming in from all the stains out there are going to be way down, which is an odd thing. It's always been the way it is that the Jewish population in the United States, very much Democrat backers overall. I mean, there are really and my parents have had a bunch of Jewish friends that, you know, are in that older age range, you know, up in their 1780s.
And when I ask, well, why is this? It's like, well, the Jews see it that they're Democrats first and Jews second. And that to me is very weird. It's like, why would your political party take precedence over something as important? I think it's actually more complicated than that because this is something I've been bitching about Israel forever is they're socialist.
It's like whatever is called a conservative in Israel, like, Netanyahu is such a conservative, he would be a Democrat in the United States. They're they're shifted over like they're liberals are full blown socialist. They live on commute there. There's a a propensity and has been since day one of the creation of the state of Israel for a very socialist friendly government.
This is a and Israel's been friendly to a certain extent with the USSR because of that as well is because they share a lot of their ideals or they did back in the day about what is the proper form of government. So if you think of it, their government is historically like ever since 1947 as lean towards being a religious socialism.
They kind of there's the we just want to get along with everybody saying, well, it's it is it's and I mean, I guess it's not complicated to figure out why because you essentially have a population in the country that is made up of and this is going back to the origins of the country, maybe not today, but back then were everybody that became an Israeli. And for the last thousand years, their family lived somewhere else.
And so they had to be a minority that had to get along with the majority, you know, whether they were Polish Jews or German Jews or Italian Jews, it doesn't matter where or Middle Eastern Jews. There's plenty of that was they were always the smallest segment of the population. They're one of the smallest segments.
And so they they have to live under the laws of other countries and not make too much trouble because, you know, in like in Russia, you had the pogroms something because they people started thinking that they're getting too uppity, you know, welcoming to all the Jews that own all the the fancy stores and everything. Yeah. They're too successful, you know.