I Want To Live Long Enough To See History Misportrayed

Summary

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Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: "I Want To Live Long Enough To See History Misportrayed"
Date: February 19, 2026
Hosts: Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the current state of U.S.-Iran relations and military posturing, the lack of public debate about potential conflict, the complexities of historical events (especially as they’re misportrayed over time), culture wars in American education, youth activism, and a human/animal neuroscience lesson related to high-performance pressure. The hosts blend their trademark conversational, often wry style with sharp commentary on politics, history, and society.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. U.S.-Iran Tensions: Military Build-up and Media Messaging

• Main Takeaway: Tensions in the Middle East are rapidly escalating, with a potential U.S. strike on Iran said to be "90% likely" according to leaked administration sources (Axios). The hosts critique the lack of public awareness and engagement on the topic.

  • Joe Getty (01:15): “Axios reports the chance of military action against Iran in coming weeks is 90%.”
  • Jack Armstrong (01:30): "These are on purpose leaks designed to reach the leadership of Iran… much more like a war than what we saw over the summer."
  • Discussion around possible intended messaging behind leaks and the possibility of a more severe and protracted campaign compared to previous operations.

• Quagmire or Quick Strike?

  • Hosts debate whether a strike on Iran could become another Iraq-style quagmire.
    • Jack Armstrong (05:22): “My pushback on the idea that this will be another quagmire like Iraq… Iran has killed more US soldiers than any other country on the planet over the last half century.”
    • Joe Getty shares a listener’s email—a retired Air Force veteran—arguing that the Iranian regime is weak and could crumble quickly, with much of the population opposed to the Ayatollah.

• Trump’s Style:

  • Contrast Trump’s transactional approach with President Bush’s democracy-spreading ethos.
    • Joe Getty (06:28): "Trump, I think, is well cut out to deal with the Middle Eastern countries. He gets it… Unfortunately, sometimes he treats our neighbors and friends in the same way, in an entirely transactional way, which I don't think is proper, but he gets the Middle East."

2. Iraq War Reflection & History’s Misportrayal

• Hosts recall the massive public debate preceding the Iraq War—and contrast it to current silence on Iran.

  • Jack Armstrong (03:49): “The build up to Iraq… was like the only topic for a long time… I haven’t heard a single person bring up Iran.”

• Critique of the de-Baathification blunder in Iraq and its role in generating chaos; discussion of figures like L. Paul Bremer and Wolfowitz.

• Jack Armstrong references John Lukacs’s “Five Days in London, May 1940” as a model of how history is always more complicated, and how future retellings are often wrong or oversimplified.

  • (12:09): “One reason I want to live to be a very, very old man is I want to see how a lot of things I’ve lived through are portrayed historically decades and decades later…”

• Memorable Moment

  • Joe Getty (12:32): “I want to live long enough to see history misportrayed and it makes me so angry I die. That’s good to have a goal.”
  • Jack Armstrong (12:41): “I can’t wait to live long enough to see everybody get history wrong.”

3. Youth Activism, School Indoctrination, and Neo-Marxism

• Armstrong & Getty delve into student protests against ICE in American schools, questioning the role of teachers and school administrations in encouraging activism at very young ages.

  • Joe Getty (14:05): “You know, I’ve been howling for quite a while now about the progressive neo Marxist takeover of our nation’s schools.”
  • Jack Armstrong (14:11): “[My son] would talk about these arguments they got into at lunchtime about trans stuff and all these and I said, who’s bringing this up?... It’s got to be being introduced by the school, doesn’t it?”
  • Discussion transitions to disturbing audio of high school and even middle schoolers (heard chanting and reciting politically charged poetry) at anti-ICE protests.
    • Joe Getty (21:36): “That’s unbelievable. That’s like the sound I expect out of kids if a school shooter is on campus.”
    • Both hosts express alarm at the level of anger and politicization among very young students.

• Historical Parallels:

  • Comparison to China’s Cultural Revolution and Mao’s use of youth.
  • Joe Getty (21:54): “That is straight out of the Cultural Revolution in China where Mao turned the kids against their parents…”

• Classroom Reality:

  • The hosts highlight a high-profile essay by Professor Sam Abrams of Sarah Lawrence College, who details his students’ immediate rejection of nonviolent protest in favor of armed confrontation.
    • Joe Getty paraphrasing Abrams (25:35): “Several endorsed armed confrontation with ICE as both effective and ethically justified.”
  • Further reading and commentary follows, warning that students’ naïveté about violence may end tragically and arguing that the rule of law exists precisely to protect the privileged.

• Notable Quote

  • Joe Getty, reading and reflecting (27:23): “This may be the first generation of utopians who want to wage a revolution without spilling their lattes…”

4. Social Class, Revolution, and Lawlessness

• Conversation about the tendency of privileged youth to feel immune from the repercussions of social breakdown.
  • Jack Armstrong (30:38): “It is interesting that the mostly well to do college crowd thinks that if the S really hits the fan, they’ll be safe.”
  • Joe Getty (31:16): “They’ve learned self hatred. They hate their parents, they hate themselves, they hate their society. And so they become Marxists to ease their guilt.”

5. Performance Pressure: The "Quad God" & Rhesus Monkey Neuroscience

• Transition to Olympic winter sports: analysis of U.S. men's and women's hockey teams and the figure skating “Quad God,” Ilya Malinin, who fell from grace under Olympic pressure.
  • Joe Getty (34:25): “Ilya Malinin, the so called quad God, who… fell on his arse repeatedly and ended up in eighth even though he is the best skater on the planet.”
  • Joe Getty shares a Carnegie Mellon/University of Pittsburgh study on rhesus monkeys to explain the neuroscience of “choking” under pressure:
    • When the stakes are raised too high, the primates’ brains become overly cautious, interfering with normally smooth motions—mirroring what happens to elite athletes and performers.
  • Joe Getty (36:52): “Earl the monkey consistently hit the target… until the reward hit Jackpot proportions… then he missed 11 out of 11 times because there’s too much on the line.”
  • Hosts discuss how performers must rely on training and avoid overthinking to succeed in these high-pressure situations.
    • Jack Armstrong (38:14): “There are some people who that part of their brain probably doesn’t work very well. They don’t care. So they just get out there and excel.”

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On lack of debate about Iran
  • Jack Armstrong (03:49): “I haven’t heard a single person bring up Iran.”
• On history's distortion
  • Joe Getty (12:32): “I want to live long enough to see history misportrayed and it makes me so angry I die. That’s good to have a goal.”
• On school activism
  • Joe Getty (14:05): “You literally now have third graders walking out to protest ice. That is insane that that’s being permitted. Why is it being... it's being encouraged and organized by the administration and teachers of your local schools."
• On youth revolutionaries
  • Joe Getty (27:23): “This may be the first generation of utopians who want to wage a revolution without spilling their lattes.”
• On the neuroscience of choking
  • Joe Getty (36:52): “Earl the monkey consistently hit the target… until the reward hit Jackpot proportions… then he missed 11 out of 11 times because there’s too much on the line.”

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Key Segment Timestamps

• Opening U.S.-Iran Military Discussion: 00:58 – 07:48
• Debate: Quagmire vs. Quick Strike: 03:20 – 07:48
• History & Iraq War Reflections: 09:21 – 12:41
• School Indoctrination, Youth Protests: 12:59 – 19:11
• Middle/High School Protest Audio & Discussion: 14:47 – 24:41
• Professor Sam Abrams/Student Violence Rhetoric: 24:41 – 30:17
• Class & Revolution: 30:17 – 31:40
• Sports: Olympic Hockey & Quad God: 32:54 – 38:02
• Rhesus Monkey Study (Performance Pressure): 34:25 – 38:44

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Tone & Style

The episode maintains the Armstrong & Getty signature: candid, conversational, equal parts satirical and earnest, with layered references to history, politics, and culture. While the tone is often wry and exasperated, the hosts shift to passionate seriousness when discussing the stakes of foreign policy and generational change.

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Summary

For listeners wanting both sharp current-events insight and broader worries about how our stories are told and retold, this episode offers a broad tour: from impending war, to the pitfalls of past policy, through the cultural battles in schools, and ending with a blend of science and Olympic heartbreak. Armstrong & Getty keep it lively, critical, and thought-provoking throughout.

Transcript

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[Jack Armstrong]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center,

[Commercial Announcer]

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Jack Armstrong]

And now here's Armstrong and get.

[Joe Getty]

Black History Month is really all about American history. Steps away from the White House's Black History Month celebration, officials continued making war plans.

[Caller or Guest]

There's many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against the against Iran.

[Joe Getty]

Axios reports the chance of military action against Iran in coming weeks is 90%. Citing an unnamed senior Trump adviser. I think he wants to be patient in a reasonable way. He's not going to wait forever.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm assuming. Some of these reports coming out Axios, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, others have a lot of the same info. It's these are on purpose leaks designed to reach the leadership of Iran. 90% likely we're going to strike Iran. And Axios also reporting that it will be multiple weeks sustained campaign, much more like a war than what we saw over the summer. And here's the CBS's version of what the buildup is looking like.

[Joe Getty]

You're looking at like 20 US Navy ships already that are there or headed to the Middle East. And this isn't about like just possibly attacking Iran, but defending against possible retaliation strikes on the US Forces in the region or Israel.

[Jack Armstrong]

Hey, you can't leave that out of the discussion in that they'll be reacting as if, well, we throw everything at the Americans or we're gonna die. This is it.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Do you mind if we play 84? This is Alan Iyer, also on CBS News.

[CBS News Correspondent]

The United States administration feels Iran is much weaker after last year's 12 Day War with Israel. So its set of demands has expanded even further to include things like no Iranian support for its proxies and real limitations on Iran's missile force. And that is a bridge too far for Iran because they think that if they cede to these US Demands, it will invite more pressure.

[Jack Armstrong]

Interesting. So do you think they're poison pilling the negotiations on purpose, like just with demands that there's no way they would meet.

[Joe Getty]

I think they're fully aware that there's very little chance they'll meet those demands. Yeah. But at the same time, and this is one area where I agree pretty strongly with the Trump administration, they're saying, well, the status quo is unsustainable. It's insane that we've hung with it as long as we have. And given the weakness those fellows mentioned at the moment, now's the time.

[Jack Armstrong]

What's the argument for not attacking Iran?

[Joe Getty]

Oh, Quagmire. I happen to see the reason, Dotcom. Our libertarian friends, the hawks, are lying us into yet another Middle Eastern war like the Iraq war. The planned war with Iran is built on false premises, unlike the Iraq war. And this is true. There hasn't even been a real public debate.

[Jack Armstrong]

No. Yeah, yeah. I find this disturbing that nobody's paying attention to this.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

The build up to Iraq, in case you don't remember, I mean, it was like the only topic for a long time and I remember it coming up in dinners and all kinds of stuff, you know, where were you on attacking Iraq, for or against? I haven't heard a single person bring up Iran.

[Joe Getty]

No, no. So I thought I would share this with you briefly. Excuse me. Don writes, gentlemen, having spent 25 years in the US Air Force and many years in the Persian Gul, have some insights for you to consider. The Iraqi Republican Guard and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard fought each other brutally for eight years in the 80s. True, millions of people died. It was basically a Sunni, Shia thing. Something that really motivates the Muslim world to fight. During Desert Storm, the Republican Guard fell apart in days when fighting the Western coalition. It was not a religious based war and frankly, the average Iraqi citizen was fed up with Saddam Hussein. The Guard was too. Fast forward 35 years and the Revolutionary Guard is facing a non religious war not unlike Desert Storm. And they too will crumble if it will be different. As I don't see the Trump administration waiting months to prepare for a ground war with hundreds of thousands of troops poised to invade. If war does occur, there will no doubt be the exchange of missiles and bombs. But the Revolutionary Guard members, like their civilian families and relatives are fed up with the Ayatollah and the crashed economy. They will have no will to fight and certainly do not want to see their economy destroyed. Further, the majority of Iranian citizens are secretly praying for the US to remove their leaders and will provide little resistance.

[Jack Armstrong]

My pushback on the idea that this will Be another quagmire like Iraq would be one. Iraq wasn't in the business of constantly attacking us. They were a problem for allies in the Middle east and the world, but they weren't constantly attacking. Iran has killed more US Soldiers than any other country on the planet over the last half century.

[Joe Getty]

And

[Jack Armstrong]

I also think it's a pretty big deal that Trump isn't. I was about to use a really unfortunate phrase. I won't. Trump isn't all enthusiastic about spreading democracy around the world. He doesn't care at all. Just somebody else that is, you know, not belligerent to us. You know, George Bush was really into the idea, and it's a noble left idea. The idea of, we know we're going to install a democracy. People are hungry for freedom. Trump's more of a no, you ain't playing ball the way we want you to play ball. You got to go. If the person after Maduro is a, is a, is on our side, I don't care how they do it.

[Joe Getty]

Doesn't matter us. Yeah. The interesting thing about Trump, and I wish he knew the difference, but is in the Middle East, I mean, I described earlier how I'm sure, while these sure to be dead, soon to be dead negotiations are going on, we're talking to the UAE and the other Gulf states, the Saudis in particular, about can we use your airspace? Here's what we're probably going to do, blah, blah, blah. I understand you're going to make public trend, public announcements, but you're going to help us behind the scenes. What Trump understands and is particularly well suited to is that the Middle east is 100% transactional. You have no friends. You buy friends, they are friends till you stop buying them. In the Middle east, with the exception of, you know, you're Sunni, I'm Sunni, but even that is iffy a lot of times. So Trump, I think, is well cut out to deal with the Middle Eastern countries. He gets it. Unfortunately, sometimes he treats like our neighbors and friends in the same way, in an entirely transactional way, which I don't think is proper, but he gets the Middle East.

[Jack Armstrong]

But isn't it much less likely to turn into a quagmire if we're, like, knocking off the Ayatollah and the theocracy? And if the Revolutionary Guard made noises to Trump, hey, we are not going to pursue a nuclear weapon? And sure, we'll stop funding Hamas and Hezbollah?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Then go ahead.

[Jack Armstrong]

Run the country however you want.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. As we analyze news, there's a real tendency to Just so oversimplify everything into good idea or bad idea.

[Jack Armstrong]

You know, it's one of you can have.

[Joe Getty]

Well, go ahead. Do you want to jump in? Or I can explain what I mean. You can have a. That sounded like an order. That. That sounded like you were ordering me around. I won't have it. I will not have finished. You said with menace in your voice. Letting you. Like I'm some sort of stray Olympic dog running around on the women's.

[Jack Armstrong]

Letting you finish was the host shouted, sit at me.

[Joe Getty]

Katie, did you notice the tone of voice? Yeah, that. That was a bit. Sit. Stay. Ish. So off putting.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, my Lord. When you say after you. Is that an order? No, don't tell me to go in the door first. What?

[Joe Getty]

It's all about the tone. You have a tone thing. Tone is a thing.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay.

[Joe Getty]

After you is a smidge different than finish. Yeah, I'll work on it. Oh, my Lord. Anyway, so you can have a good idea. You can have a idea or you can have a plainly bad idea. You can implement that good idea in a good way, in a way, or in a bad way. Same with the other levels of ideas. Sometimes good ideas are done poorly and they end badly. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Iraq was a questionable idea, done very badly. Famously, the de bathification where he removed like the entire governmental infrastructure of the country was so effing stupid.

[Jack Armstrong]

I can't believe adults approved it.

[Joe Getty]

And Rumsfeld and Bush and company did. We can't do that. As Jack points out, prior to tongue lashing me, there is power structure there that can keep it from descending into chaos, but it's still a roll of the dice.

[Jack Armstrong]

What's that guy's name? I. I wanted him to be a villain for history. Paul. What's his name? Wolfowitz. No, no.

[Joe Getty]

Wolfitz.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes, but maybe I don't have the right first name. Paul Allen, the guy that was behind the whole. The bathification thing. He got off scot free with. With a horrible, horrible idea. I'll come up with his name just because I want to villainize him.

[Joe Getty]

But if you ever want to read a great book, I mean, it's. It'll make you insane. But about Iraq. Read the book. Our intentions were good. I don't recall the author's name, but it's. He worked for the State Department. So good. I wonder if that dog capering about on the ski run is ingesting rough greens. I'll bet he is because he looked very, very energetic. Rough greens is not a new food for your dog. It Supplements your dog's diet with natural antioxidants and anti inflammatory compounds that help reduce oxidative stress, support immune defense and slow age related decline, helping your beloved pup stay active, mobile and alert as they age.

[Jack Armstrong]

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[Joe Getty]

You just cover the shipping. That's a great excuse to try it. Ruff Greens.com Rough Greens.com use the promo code Armstrong. Don't change your dog's food. Just add rough greens and watch the health benefits come alive. You love your dog. Check it out. Rough Greens. Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm not coming across the name even though I chat GPT did. I'm going to he. I feel like escaped more than anybody else. I can't believe I don't have his name at the top of my tongue. Anyway, what I was going to jump in with was when you said things are so much more complicated than our, you know, portrayed either at the time or in history. I got turned onto this famous book written quite a few years ago by a guy named John Lucas called Five Days in London, May 1940. And it's really all about the whole appeasement thing and all that. Right when it switched from Neville Chamberlain to Winston Churchill's a prime minister and where the country was and their ideas. It's so much more nuanced and complex than the idiot appeasement people. And you know, Winston Churchill understanding. It's just way, way, way more complicated than that.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

And. And portrayed poorly through history like so many things are. One, one reason I want to live to be a very, very old man is I want to see how a lot of things I've lived through are portrayed historically decades and decades later and, and probably give you a fatal heart

[Joe Getty]

attack frustration and probably be very angry

[Jack Armstrong]

about the way they, you know,

[Joe Getty]

I want to live long enough to see history misportrayed and it makes me so angry I die. That's good to have a goal.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's a funny thing to dream of, isn't it?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

I can't wait to live long enough to see everybody get history wrong.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I know what you mean though. I have so much curiosity about how some of this is going to play out. It's like I want to know how the play ends. Movie ends.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joe Getty]

So EOC AOC tried to clean up her mess. Also folks, this is serious. You can tell because I said folks, the live action role playing LARPing I'm a revolutionary has gone from our campuses onto the streets obviously. But it's gone into our high schools, our middle schools and our elementary schools. You know, I've been howling for quite a while now about the progressive neo Marxist takeover of our nation's schools. You literally now have third graders walking out to protest ice. That is insane that that's being permitted. Why is it being. Well it's not being permitted. It's being encouraged and organized by the administration and teachers of your local schools. Now do you think I'm paranoid when I say neo Marxism is infiltrating our schools?

[News Reporter]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wait till you hear this audio of little kids and how angry they are about ice. And then try to imagine you being that angry as a middle schooler about anything political having any idea it's happening.

[Joe Getty]

They're clearly being indoctrinated all day long in school obviously.

[Jack Armstrong]

Stay tuned for that Armstrong and Getty.

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[News Reporter]

A midair emergency minutes after takeoff. Passengers on this early morning Delta flight from Houston to Atlanta forced to jump into action. The airline says another passenger began attacking people in the cabin.

[Commercial Announcer]

He stumbled to the back and just start punching everybody.

[News Reporter]

Passenger seen screaming at flight attendants. The crew and some of those passengers try to subdue him, holding him down. The flight turning around, landing back at Houston's hobby airport just 15 minutes after takeoff. That passenger escorted off the plane in zip tie.

[Jack Armstrong]

So if you haven't seen that video, this guy is giant. Was he pantless or shirtless? It seemed like I was seeing a lot of skin there.

[Joe Getty]

He ended up shirtless because they had to beat him down and sit on him.

[Jack Armstrong]

What I liked was the long line of dudes going down the center aisle who were Ready to take that on. That is a modern thing. There are plenty of guys on every plane were willing to step up and say, no, you ain't.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. There are different roles for men and women. They're different.

[Jack Armstrong]

By the way, we don't have to relitigate the Iraq war, although there's better reason for it now on the verge of going to war with Iran, than there has been in quite some time. But the name I was looking for, L. Paul Bremer. I feel like he skated on this more than anybody else. He's the guy that came up with de Bathification. It was his idea to get rid of all the security forces.

[Joe Getty]

And then I've always thought of Paul

[Jack Armstrong]

Wolf woods, who's always already been mentioned, like the architect of the Iraq war, that he was an academic who, after it fell apart, thought, hmm, I thought that would have worked. Anyway, I guess I'll go back to being a rich, powerful man and, you know, live my wife.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

What a disaster. Remember Ahmed Chalabi? I'm really throwing it back now. That complete. A complete phony crook that we were going to install in president based on all kinds of phony information that he made up. Oh, God, it was so poorly executed. Let's just hope this time around with a major war that, you know, people are paying better attention than that.

[Joe Getty]

No group think. No group think. Coming up, Science explains why the quad God fell on his ass. Stay with us. Yeah. The key to understanding it is rhesus monkeys. An experiment they did with rhesus monkeys.

[Jack Armstrong]

Can rhesus monkeys land a. A quad?

[Joe Getty]

Well, I don't want to give it away, but the experiment went very badly.

[Jack Armstrong]

Our girls, the. The Blade Goddesses. Or I can't. I can't remember. What's the actual name?

[Joe Getty]

Even if I did remember, I wouldn't tell you because I hate when you say it.

[Jack Armstrong]

But so NBC built up Quad God. And then, you know, and legitimately, I mean, he was the greatest skater it's ever skated and hadn't lost in eight years or something like that and was expected to dominate. And then he fell, but then this. So then.

[Joe Getty]

And finished eighth.

[Jack Armstrong]

So then they had to build up these girls. The quad. The Blade God.

[Joe Getty]

This is Angels.

[Jack Armstrong]

Blade Angels. That's it. The Blade Angels. They built them up, built them up, built them up. And then last night, they didn't do so great. And they're in, like, 8th and 13th and 21st or something. So they're having trouble with building up the skaters and getting a, you know, a Household name going, hey, those top

[Joe Getty]

seven countries gotta hit him with some tariffs. Punitive tariffs. Come on, Trump.

[Jack Armstrong]

That would only be like one notch off of something Trump would do.

[Joe Getty]

Oh boy, I know. It's tough to even write parody these days.

[Jack Armstrong]

Hey Japan, talk to your skaters or we're hitting you with heavy tariffs.

[Joe Getty]

So I promise I'll finally pay off the quad God thing later this hour. Coming up in a moment or two. And this is much more serious. And, and I mean this from the depths of my soul. The indoctrination of America's school children by the far left is now a couple of generations in and they are now not even trying to hide it. Third graders staging anti ice walkouts. You think the eight year olds themselves are organizing this? Do you think they've brought themselves up to speed on far left politics?

[Podcast Advertiser]

No.

[Joe Getty]

So we'll have some features on that, some information.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, that's what I was saying back when my son was in the regular public school and he'd talk about these arguments they got into at lunchtime about trans stuff and all these and I said, who's, who's bringing this up? Nobody was talking about this before. It's got to be being introduced by the school, doesn't it?

[Joe Getty]

It absolutely is. 100% is. It's required curriculum in California, for instance. Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay, well, stick around for this. If you haven't heard this audio yet, it's really something. If you miss a segment, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty on Demand.

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[Jack Armstrong]

Got some good stuff for you coming up. Rest of the show and I hope you can stick around. If you missed the segment, get the podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, including what an experiment with rhesus monkeys shows us about why the quad God choked.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's funny you have that one. We also have a story about Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Reese's Monkeys and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

[Joe Getty]

in an odd co.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yes, Reese's Peanut Butter cups are not made of Reese's monkeys, though it's important to note.

[Joe Getty]

Let's put that one to bed right now. Yeah. I don't want to tell you too much about the experiment, but the monkeys quickly realized the blades, the skates, could be used as weapons. And so much monkey blood. Anyway, stay with us. Moving from that ridiculous joke into a very serious matter. It keeps me sane. That's why I do that. Our school children are being indoctrinated in a lot of our government schools into far left ideology, radical gender theory, socialism. Just that whole gamut of, you know, anti racism, hating white people, blaming white. Just all of them. Every day they're taught that. And it's absolutely sickening. I give you this from Winters High School. This is a small rural community in Northern California, not far from Sacramento, very small, where the high school students walked out to hold an anti ICE protest and a local mom was there, didn't love it, and held up a Trump sign. Here's how that went. Her sign was torn down. She was pulled off the box she was standing on. Madness and violence ensued.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's unbelievable. That's like the sound I expect out of kids if a school shooter is on campus.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. Or something. That is straight out of the Cultural Revolution in China where Mao turned the kids against their parents, which never made sense to me.

[Jack Armstrong]

I read about it years ago. I've read about it a lot. And it was always like, is there something different about Chinese culture where people could get this angry and attack people in the streets who are wearing eyeglasses because they're intellectuals and drag them through the streets and beat them? And now I'm seeing that level of anger over things happen in my own country at very young ages.

[Joe Getty]

I think it was Lenin who said. It was somebody like Lennon who said, give me one generation, I can rule the world. Just letting people in their minds of one generation.

[Jack Armstrong]

Can you play the beginning of that again? It's just a listen to the fever pitch.

[Joe Getty]

And how old are these k high schoolers? Howling for blood, screaming in hatred. And then this is middle school students in Seattle, Washington. These kids look to be maybe 12. Maybe 12.

[Caller or Guest]

We are all humans, no matter the race, no disgrace. We all deserve a place and we shouldn't have to pick up our pace because a police officer isn't our face or a crazy white lady. These phrases with M, we're getting deported by ICE and I can't understand why everyone can't suffice. We have might, so we must fight just for our rights. Look at the future and set our sights. Ice cook Our system is cooked, booked. Our president should read a book.

[Joe Getty]

Shook.

[Caller or Guest]

Every time we see an officer we shouldn't be shook. Look, we shouldn't be judged on the way we look. We can shine as we work together and who knows, maybe like a phoenix, we will continue

[Commercial Announcer]

Try.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, F ice they said in the middle of it in a middle school, they've been carefully taught. Carefully taught.

[Jack Armstrong]

How many violently angry protests were you involved in as a child? Not zero for me.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely sick and we've let it happen under our watch and it's. I think it may be the biggest problem in America right now and nobody, certainly nobody in the lamestream media talks about it. But I wanted to get to this. This is so good. Sam Abrams is a professor at Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester county, just north of New York City. You can picture what that's like. High dollar, private liberal arts college. But he wrote an essay that's getting a lot of attention and I love it. I recently oh, that reminds me. There was another great essay by a professor who some keffiyeh wearing down with Israel, up with the Palestinians folks interrupted a lecture he was doing and he said the more I treated them like angry little children, the more they listened and by the end several of them were crying. He didn't teach to treat them as though they were big and scary, treating

[Jack Armstrong]

them like little children.

[Joe Getty]

It was amazing. More on that another time, maybe on the podcast. But anyway, Professor Abrams says, I recently walked into my politics class at Sarah Lawrence College, prepared to discuss civic protest. The prompt was Minneapolis, where a recent immigration enforcement surge. We all know what happened.

[Jack Armstrong]

I heard about that.

[Joe Getty]

I plan to cover basic principles, the right to protest, the obligation to remain nonviolent, the distinction between civil obedience and coercion. My students rejected the premise almost immediately. What are we supposed to do when asked, hold signs while people are being shot? You're asking us to play by rules that only we follow, Another said. They cited the Black Panthers. They invoked Stonewall, the famous gay uprising. They argued confidently that throughout American history, violence or the credible threat of it was what forced change. Several endorsed armed confrontation with ICE as both effective and ethically justified armed confrontation.

[Jack Armstrong]

Did he get a chance to say, at any point you see, if your side does it, though, the other side does it. Next thing you know, you got precisely where he's going.

[Joe Getty]

And then the writer who's talking about this says, these views are not, of course, confined to students at Sarah Lawrence, but views widely shared at virtually all of America's prestigious universities. There are many reasons for this growing polarization, which has been documented extensively. Abrams correctly points to the outrageous rhetoric that has now become routine among Democratic politicians. Quote, last month, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner issued a statement that would have been unthinkable from a major American law enforcement official a generation ago. Speaking about federal immigration agents, Krasner declared, quote, we talked about this in a country of 350 million. We outnumber them. If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice. The students, Abrams notes, are listening. What is clear from the article, however, is that these young leftists have a very distorted idea of what it means to choose violence over the rule of law. And who is this journalist? Oh, he uses a pen name. I'm hardly the first person to notice that many of the people interfering with ICE are delusionally imagining that they can violently confront armed law enforcement agents without any consequences. At least two people have now lost their lives, but the lesson still has not sunk in. The communists and anarchists in the 30s and even the 60s were certainly depraved and destructive, but they at least possessed a certain realism or worldliness. They knew that violence is a two way street, that revolutions are bloody, and that they lead to death and destruction on both sides. Thanks in part to the propaganda bubble created by social media, many of today's erstwhile revolutionaries don't understand this. For them, violent rhetoric and even violent actions are a game in which their side at least is not supposed to get hurt.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right?

[Joe Getty]

They're LARPing.

[Jack Armstrong]

Clearly true.

[Joe Getty]

When ICE agents protect themselves with force, these naive radicals are shocked, as if the other team has somehow violated the rules. They do act like that. This may be the first generation of utopians who want to wage a revolution without spilling their lattes. And he says, if I were a guest speaker in Professor Abrams class, I might offer his students the following observations. You've made it clear that you reject civil disobedience, a venerable form of American protest that respects the law while seeking to change it in favor of violence, violently repudiating the legitimate exercise of government authority. Trump ran on the issue of deportations. He won. One of the main immigration laws that ICE is enforcing has been on the books for decades, signed by Bill Clinton in 96. Joe Biden, who was president as recently as 13 months ago, never sought to repeal any immigration laws. He simply ignored them. Before him, Barack Obama deported hundreds of thousands of People per year. Where were your protests then? But rather than change the law, you wish to nullify it? Is this really a precedent you want to set here? He really gets down to it. If ICE stands down in the face of this extortion, it will mean the victory of mob rule. It is hard to see how the rule of law will survive once both sides conclude that rejecting the results of an election justifies riots and violent resistance. Lottie on the left weren't pleased with January 6, for instance. Let me ask you a question you may not have considered. Who is the law designed to protect? The powerful and well armed don't need protection. The framers of the Constitution devised all those artful measures for managing our differences precisely to overcome the age old tyranny of the strong against the weak. Are you our students at an elite university in upscale Westchester County? How many of you have been in a fight? Punched someone in the face, I would add. Been punched in the face? Fired a gun, Killed anything larger than a bug? Do you really want to start a fight with millions of N members living in the middle of the country? People who keep a rifle in their pickup and go hunting every weekend? These people who may live 100 miles from the nearest sheriff's office can fend for themselves. Can you? Your rhetoric about violence may push the country closer to rampant lawlessness. Perhaps that gives you a thrill of transgressive titlization. Titillation rather. But if open conflict comes, it won't be a game for the amusement of children playing at war. A cynic who thinks you should face the consequences of your juvenile Fantasies might paraphrase H.L. mencken by saying, give the students what they want, good and hard. I won't be that cynic. Instead, I'll urge you to think carefully about what civil breakdown looks like. You may see it soon enough in Zoran Mumbi's New York. You may be wishing for more law enforcement, even from the federal government before too long. Your posturing about violence is thoughtless and dangerous. The rules of law exist to protect people like you. And when it breaks down, the people most likely to get hurt are you. Cut it out.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's pretty good.

[Joe Getty]

Oh my God. We need adults in the country and not Marxists running your local government school, isn't it? You don't believe me? Check out what your school is actually teaching. You might be in the reddest state in the Union. You might be in Utah. Your local school is a blue little sapphire.

[Jack Armstrong]

It is interesting that the mostly well to do college crowd thinks that if the S really hits the fan, they'll be safe.

[Joe Getty]

When in the authorities will step in.

[Jack Armstrong]

When in the history of things going crazy? Are the wealthy and privileged the safe ones? When all order breaks down.

[Joe Getty]

Whoever never thrown or received the punch except a sucker punch. When 11 of them surround a poor Jewish well.

[Jack Armstrong]

Plus you got the stuff. You got the cars and the houses and the money and the privilege. And if everything breaks down, people are gonna want your stuff.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, well that's where we get to that weird neo Marxist upscale what Matt Taibbi famously called I keep it handy. Upper class twits promoting revolution. They've learned self hatred. They hate their parents, they hate themselves, they hate their society. And so they become Marxists to ease their guilt.

[Jack Armstrong]

So Joe's going to explain how quad fraud fell on his sparkly buttocks the

[Joe Getty]

other night with the aid of my friends, the rhesus monkeys.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's science. Stay tuned.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Getty.

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[Sports Commentator]

Extra skater out for Sweden. There's Raymond, flies it across. Score. Sweden ties it and we are headed for overtime in Milan. Now Quinn Hughes, we played three and a half minutes in overtime. Quinn Hugh shoots. He scores. He scores. Quinn Hughes in overtime wins it. And the United States will move on and face Slovakia in the semis.

[Jack Armstrong]

And Sweden was one of the real impediments to getting the gold medal, right? They had to get past them.

[Joe Getty]

Appreciate the Skinner in the background. Yeah. Oh yeah, they're tough. They're really good.

[Jack Armstrong]

So our girls hockey team, which might win gold also in at the time of this recording, we're about an hour away from there. Dropping the puck against Canada. 7th time in 8 years that US Canada has played each other for a championship on Canada.

[Joe Getty]

It's not even going to be close.

[Jack Armstrong]

You think?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Awesome. That's fantastic.

[Joe Getty]

Wow. Anti Canadian hatred. That's.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'm an American. I'm pro. USA. USA is plus 30 in goal differential in this tournament in hockey.

[Joe Getty]

31. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh my God.

[Joe Getty]

31 to 1 goals for and against. Speaking of games played on the ice, we're doing magnificently well in hockey. We, the usa. Not so well in your figure skating. Led, of course.

[Jack Armstrong]

Stay on our feet.

[Joe Getty]

Ilya Malinin, the so called quad God, who. Who fell on his arse repeatedly and ended up in eighth even though he is the best skater on the planet. And he admitted afterward that the pressure of the O gets to you. And he was kind of surprised at how it got him. I want to throw this in before we run out of time. He manfully asked a bunch of questions, answered a bunch of questions and said, I choked. And as he exited the ice and walked out of the arena, having disappointed himself more than he ever imagined was possible, he went over to the Kazakhstani competitor who unexpectedly won gold and said, congratulations, you deserve it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I saw that. I thought it was very cool.

[Joe Getty]

Classy guy, nice kid. I'm rooting for him. Anyway, so, interestingly enough, a team of neuroscientists at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh have been doing experiments with rhesus monkeys. Strapping them into little figure skates, putting

[Jack Armstrong]

them in sequins, lots of glitter.

[Joe Getty]

And I can explain so much glitter. I can explain the methodology. But what they found was because they were having these monkeys do these tasks for rewards.

[Jack Armstrong]

What they found was typewriters trying to write Shakespeare.

[Joe Getty]

Infinite. Actually, it was only a three. Three monkeys. Not an infinite number of monkeys. Which. Imagine the cleaning after dealing with infinite monkeys. Anyway, infinite monkeys, not a bad band name. So the. If the prize gets too big, all of the primates they studied, your brain becomes overly cautious. You slow down the neuron activity that prepares the body for motor movements that the body usually does smoothly, without hesitation, without you even thinking. And what they found was when the prize got too big, the monkeys choked. The monkeys became over cautious. You could see it in their brains. And Earl the monkey. Why do you gotta name the monkeys? How about monkey number one? That's good. The monkey doesn't know his name. If you say Earl, he doesn't say yes. Can I help you?

[Jack Armstrong]

It's just silly.

[Joe Getty]

Anyway, Earl the monkey consistently hit the target in the little game he had to play to get his reward. Until the reward hit Jackpot proportions as they describe it. And then he missed 11 out of

[Jack Armstrong]

11 times because there's too much on the line.

[Joe Getty]

Exactly what they think it has to do with. And every golfer who's decent knows this. You cannot switch things you do subconsciously into your conscious mind or you're doomed if you try to think your way through a swing, as opposed to just trusting your practice and the muscle memory you've built. This is a description of my golf game, by the way. You will flounder. You've got to trust your preparation and just let it go. You have one thought that keys everything and just go. And Ilya Malinin got the giant super bonus monkey prize in front of him. And this is the best skater in the world. In the reigning world championing, he's won what, seven, eight, ten times in a row. Whatever it is, he started thinking about what he was doing.

[Jack Armstrong]

I think he'd won 14 straight international competitions over seven or eight years.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

All a lot of the same people. So it's not even like there's some new star on that showed up and it was gonna not beat all you people over and over and over again. Never even close.

[Joe Getty]

The good ones learn and think, oh, that's what happened. I'm all right. I'm not gonna let those thoughts creep in. I'm gonna trust my prep. I'm gonn unrip it because I know I can. But you have to deal with it once or twice. For most people.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I think there are some.

[Joe Getty]

The more we learn about the brain, the more we realize, you know, you get dealt a hand of cards, then you have to play it. Now you play it is important. But there are some people who that part of their brain probably doesn't work very well. They don't care. So they just get out there and excel.

[Jack Armstrong]

They just. Yeah. You know, maybe it's a defect that that doesn't creep into their mind, that they might fail. Maybe that's a bit of a defect. But it helps you.

[Joe Getty]

Sure, in some things.

[Jack Armstrong]

I'll bet it does.

[Joe Getty]

That's wild.

[Jack Armstrong]

If you missed a segment of this show, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand. Armstrong and Getty

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