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The State of The Union
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Some days, I don't have the words to describe how I am feeling. This past week, it has been tough to wrap my head around what happened, let alone to parse together my thoughts into any semblance of a coherent thought. I believe we are not too far gone...
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Welcome to Friday. Today I am going to be doing an episode specifically on one topic. I don't even know what to call the episode necessarily. It's not going to be a full auto Friday. I am going to dedicate the entire episode to my thoughts around what happened with Charlie Kirk. I'll get into why I've waited until this point to do so here in a minute. But before I get into this, if you if you have listened to the show, you know that I pay the bills with ads and I'm contractually obligated to do so. I'm going to do my best to keep the ads in portions of this episode that don't distract from the topic or subject matter itself. So I'm going to do one before I even get into it and then I'll try to space the other one somewhere where it is unobtrusive. It is the world that I operate in and sometimes I wish that I could unwind it a little bit, but I can't in this moment. So bear with me on that. Let's get the first ad read done and then let's get into this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Helix. Not directly tied to today's episode, but like I talked about in the opening, struggling a bit. But one thing that really helps me think straight is getting a good night's sleep. My son moved into his first apartment recently. Lucky little bastard. And he needed a mattress. Guess where I went? Helix talked about this before. I had a brand relationship with them many years ago. They sent me some mattresses out to the house and then moved into a townhouse. Be closer to my son to go to high school. Needed some mattresses. Didn't have a brand relationship at the time. What did I do? I went right back to Helix and paid full retail because these mattresses are amazing. I travel quite a bit. Was just on the Road with my wife. We both said the same thing as we were flying home. I cannot wait to get back to our bed because these beds are the best mattress I've ever slept on. Here's what I recommend. 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That's gonna be a huge savings that is exclusive for listeners of the show. Again, helixsleep.com cleared hot. Okay, I got the red smoke, west of the smoke. Okay, copy west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on with it, baby. Give it to me. I mean it. Cleared hot. Copy. Cleared hot. Okay, here we go. Every time I sit down with a guest, I take the conversation or allow the conversation to go in any direction that it wants to. I don't sit down with notes. And today I have some notes in front of me because I want to make sure that I don't forget to say something that in my thoughts over the past. What would it be, I think, nine days at this point or eight days at this point that are important to me. And on that note, I actually need to time date stamp this episode. It's one of the things about putting content out. It lives forever. And I can only base how I feel and my opinions on the information that I have at hand. So Today is Thursday, September 18th. It is 2:21 in the afternoon. This episode will be out in less than 24 hours. It is not an accident that I am waiting this long to put this episode out. I have had quite a few people reach out to me and say specifically last week, last Friday, Andy, how could you put an episode up that doesn't address what happened to Charlie Kirk? And here's my response to that. I'm not in the business of doing breaking news and I have no shade to throw at anybody who makes any type of content who that they want. There are people that are in that business. There are people that make reacts videos, there are people that go after controversial topics and they make content around that and do what you want to do. But that isn't me. And one of the main reasons, one, there's a couple that I didn't put anything out last week. I was geographically not near the studio, I was on the road working. But two, even if I had been at home with access to the studio, I'm not doing an episode about that that close to it actually occurring. Because the information that is first released is often the most inaccurate. And I make enough mistakes in my life as it is, I don't need to sprint full speed ahead with impartial or incorrect information just to trip over the truth later on down the road. It's not what I do, it's not what I want to do, it's not what I'm in the business of doing. So that's just not me. I would rather wait until the day before this comes out to at least have hopefully some semblance of facts that have come to the surface. Because the amount of information circling out there is unbelievable and it's wild and some of it, I mean, I just used the term unbelievable but yet so many people are latching onto this. And I don't know why, but I'll get to that in a few bullet points. Another one of the reasons why I wouldn't have done this last Friday is that I'm actually really struggling with this one. I have lost a good amount of sleep looking at the ceiling fan thinking about what happened in the world that we are living in now. Let me say this. I am not overly moved by the mechanism that Charlie was killed by. That is probably an unintended consequence of my previous job. I'm not saying that it doesn't impact me, but that's not the first time that I have seen something like that. And I've seen things like that in person, in 8K or whatever our eyeballs actually record at. So. And that is in no way a diminishment of what happened. I've said this many times. When you touch war, I believe that it touches you back. And one of the things, if you have been around it is probably more muted response to something like that. What I'm deeply struggling with is the fact that we live in a world where all of my kids saw that video near real time and none of them were looking for it. And I've had to have conversations with all my children about what they saw, the horrific nature of what they saw, and that it is completely and utterly abnormal that throughout the course of your everyday life as a teenager into your early 20s, where you could be sitting down at the dinner table eating lunch and watch somebody get assassinated on your device minutes after it actually happened, the fact that we live in that world is very disturbing to me. And you know, there's a lot of people I've heard say, whatever, this just changes nothing. Doesn't bother me, it doesn't impact me. Well, you're a better man than I am then. Because it does. It bothers me. It impacts me. I've needed the extra time to think about hope at a deeper level. I'm not going to sit here and claim to be a deep thinker, but at a deeper level to be able to explore what it is that I'm struggling with. And that's the aspect of it that I am. I've had some people reach out to me who were there that day in the crowd. And these are in line with the conversations I've had specifically with my daughter, a 17 year old young woman. And I'll summarize a few of these emails and I'll tell you when I'm using exact words that they used and words that I'm going to apply to what I think that they were hinting at or talking around. But a couple people, men, I always told myself this is what they wrote to me. Hey, I was in the crowd and a some of them were very close to what actually happened. I never thought that I would be the person that froze. I never thought I would be that guy. I always told myself that if something happened I would take action and do something about it. But I didn't. I was frozen. And my words now not necessarily what they are saying. There has been a variety of descriptions of being unable to unsee what they saw or not be disgusted or not be able to put the thought down. I would describe it as they are haunted by what they saw. And I've tried to respond. I believe I have responded to everybody who has actually reached out directly. And what I told my daughter specifically as well is that that's the actual natural reaction to have seeing something like that should haunt you. It was grotesque in every sense of the word. And seeing something like that should not be something that you can just instantly put down if you are able to. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I would say the ability to do that is probably more abnormal than should be considered normal because you shouldn't be encountering violence like that in your life on a daily basis and hopefully if ever it should bug you. It doesn't surprise me that people freeze in those moments. That's one of the benefits of coming from a military background where you do hyper realistic training, force on force environments where you are surprised, shocked, ambushed and you practice rep after rep after rep at responding to things like that. But I'm here to tell you personal experience. Sometimes your first initial move might be a step backwards or to jump behind cover or to not leap at solving the problem. And that's okay. That is completely natural, even for trained professionals. Sometimes for those of you who are out there struggling, it's okay, you should be struggling. What we saw last week, I. I don't have the words to describe it and I'm going to talk here in a minute about one of the things that concerns me the most about this or where I think I'm not going to say concerns me the most and I'm not going to say things like, you know, this specifically is the cause of this. But I have some things that I think correlate to the trend and direction that we're on and where I think it could lead us in the future and actually where it's already led us from last week. Today's episode is brought to you by peak. Are you looking for a beverage in your life that could help you with gut health, maybe longevity? How about convenience? You could take it with you anywhere and all you need is hot water and a vessel to drink it out of. Are you looking for something that can help you with a microbiome reset, maybe enhance your energy and mood and also with that increased immune support. Now if any of that sounded like what you're looking for, or here's a better thought, if you want to combine all those things into one beverage, then I'm going to highly recommend that you check out peak. When you head over there, you're going to see a variety of products. They've got hydration protocol, they have calming electrolytes, they have adaptogenic combinations, coffee alternatives, stuff for your skin. We have Sun Goddess Matcha Beauty and electrolyte formula, Elderberry liposomal, vitamin C, Vibrance Tea. I mean, basically whatever it is that you're looking for, they're going to have this has been a welcome addition to my daily routine. I manage my coffee intake a little bit acidic for me at times, but this is something where I can fill that void. And all the stuff that I listed when I first started talking about this, that's exactly what I'm going for in this beverage. So if you're ready to elevate your day, transform your health for a limited time, you can get 20% off of the Puair bundle plus a free starter kit which includes a rechargeable frother and glass beaker. With my link, head over to peaklife.com ClearedHot that is P I Q U E life.com Cleared Hot to claim this exclusive offer Back to the show. The reaction on social media has been. What's the word? I was going to say fascinating. That's not the right word. Heartbreaking. Maybe that's a better word. And not necessarily directly involved with this incident, but in the past I've had people reach out and ask me questions about civil war. And I've always said that people should not wish for a civil war because they have no idea what they'd be getting themselves into. And I want to clarify something here because I'm worried that people may think that because I come from a military background, what I'm trying to say is, well, if we hop into a civil war, you're not going to be able to do anything because you don't know anything. And that's actually not what I'm saying at all. You can buy almost all the same equipment that military members have. Of course, you're not going to get armored vehicles and stuff like that. Put that to the side. You can buy equipment, you can train with your equipment. You could seek out really, really high level training from people who have an immense amount of combat seasoning under their belt. You can learn small unit tactics. You can become incredibly competent and lethal in just about everything the military does. It is possible for civilians to do that absent any military training. You probably would want to talk with military members off getting, you know, their experience and learning from their knowledge, but it's possible for you to do that. I'm not saying that civilians are less than when it comes to civil war. What I'm saying is, is that civil war looks like in real time what thankfully most people only saw on their devices. But it's not some person that you may have heard of or follow on social media, or don't follow on social media, or have no idea that's going to be your neighbor, that's going to be people in your community. And you're not going to be watching that on a device. You're going to be participating in that in real time. And I don't want that for anybody because again, those people reaching out with how this has impacted them because it's their first exposure, yeah, that's real. And it might have lifelong impact. I don't want that for the citizens of this country. So when I say I don't want people to even consider civil war, that's the reason why it has nothing to do with tactics and capability and everything to do with the impact that it would have on the individuals and the collective of our society. What I have seen, and this is shocking to me and I don't have an answer to this one, is an explosion almost instantly of conspiracy theories around what happened. And I wrote down just a few that come to mind here. And this one isn't necessarily a conspiracy theory. And all of these actually tie into content that people are instantly making. I mean I think I saw a reacts video to what happened in Utah within. Within the hour for sure. Within the hour. It might have been within 30 minutes. I don't have shade and judgment for people who want to make that type of content. But I also believe that there are people out there who are knowingly trying to make controversial content off of the public assassination of a 31 year old man at a college, knowing that the information that they are putting out is very, very likely to be untrue, however controversial, in the hopes of growing their platform. Do I agree with doing that? No. Am I going to do that? No. Live your life how you want, make the content you want to. But I don't think these people are doing it accidentally. I think they're doing it intentionally. And to me that sucks because morally that, that grates against who I am morally. But again I am doing my best to hold no judgment toward that, towards that or those people. But I'm not sure it helps in any way, shape or form. Now I will say this. The federal government has done a really good job and a lot of times state governments or just government in general of eroding any trust that anybody has in them. So real good job on that. By the way, we don't have enough terabytes on all the SIM cards put together in the world to go over the things that have happened to get us to that point. But I'm shocked at the number of people that are grabbing onto conspiracy theories. Now, this first one isn't a conspiracy theory, but this one is trending. And man veterans are weighing in on this. And that is the body armor. Charlie was wearing body armor. It was a Rick. And they're dissecting from a, you know, a ballistic perspective what could have happened. Ladies and gentlemen, the man was not wearing body armor. You don't need a veteran to tell you that he wasn't wearing body armor. You don't need the counter sniper or a sniper to tell you that he wasn't wearing body armor. There is video footage of him arriving shortly before the event began. And you can clearly see. It shows him from the side, the front and the back. You can see every single contour of his torso. You can see his nipples coming through the shirt. He's not wearing body armor. Why people are latching onto this is beyond me. They're talking about the T shirt and the way that it moved. And how could a bullet deflect? I'm here to tell you right now, bullets do really weird stuff. I have seen incredibly high powered bullets deflected by twigs. It depends on the angle, it depends on the distance. There are so many variables. Not every bullet flies exactly the same way. Do they sometimes do things that are beyond description? Yes. Is our world and society made better by ultra slow motion? Reviewing whether or not somebody was wearing plates when demonstrably for everybody, with your own eyes, you can see that he wasn't. And I had an interaction with somebody where I explained essentially that. And I said, you can go see this for yourself. And he said, that's not good enough for me. And I realized in that moment that if what you see with your own eyes is not good enough for you, then nothing is going to be. And I ended the interaction with, I hope you find an answer that satisfies you. And that's as far as I went, because that's as far as I can go. I've heard people talking about the sound of the shot and where it could have been coming from. Have we forgotten that almost all of this audio was recorded on devices like this here in front of me, that although the microphones are pretty good, they're designed to pick up noise that is really close to you. And let's say the camera is the camera that I'm looking at and talking into right now is the person that I'm filming. Most people are doing some version of this where they're holding it in front of you. What would this be? Sideways or vertically? What's this one called? Panorama or vertically? Whatever. You get the point, especially if you're doing audio only. So we'll talk about the shooter's position on all these things. Assuming that the shot came from the roof, have people forgotten that your body would be in between the origin of the noise and your recording device? And a lot of the times people are cupping it with their hand like this. And for this particular phone, the microphones are down by my thumb. Yet no wonder it doesn't sound like the audio that you may expect. Let's take a look at the recording devices that we're using in the orientation with which they are in. The easier explanation is more oftentimes the most likely one. I understand why conspiracy theories are sticky. They don't have to be. I've seen conspiracies about multiple shooters, the bodyguards signaling because you know, they were telling the shooter when to shoot. Nation state actors, deep state actors, and again, if you enjoy this type of content, go for it. I would ask you, is it making your life any better or worse? And that's a question for you to answer for yourself. What I don't understand is the why. Why are people in such a rush to grasp on to a theory that oftentimes is so much more complex than what is likely the much more simpler reality? Is it because as humans, we don't want to believe that a person with misguided beliefs and access to particular equipment can take this kind of action and have that kind of end state? Is it harder or scarier for us to believe that? Or do you want to believe that Israel killed Charlie Kirk, which I have no data either way, whether or not they did or didn't or had any level of involvement. What does my gut tell me? No, not at all. Have I seen a lot of videos that are already talking about that within 24 hours of his death? Yeah, a spectacular amount. And like I said before, I don't think these content creators are doing this accidentally. And if that's how you want to grow your platform, grow your platform. But here's my issue with it. Criticism throughout the course of my life for news reporting entities, agencies and individuals, specifically in the written word, where they write something down and there's an error or a factual mistake and they will sometimes issue a retraction or a clarification, but it's no longer front page news where the initial article was, and it gets buried like page 13 or whatever, to use an example. It's certainly not given the Same amount of gravitas as the original article that was presented. People complain about that all the time, right? Well, what, you know, like, how am I supposed to know that that wasn't correct? Because I didn't see the. The retraction of the clarification. And it gets me wondering, for these people creating this content, how many people out there who are in that space who have created videos like this do you think are going to take the time at the end of this when the actual evidence bubbles to the surface? Which, again, I was hoping that something substantial would have come up by the early afternoon of Thursday, September 18th? I'm not seeing anything incredibly definitive, even though I know we will actually get there when that happens. And the videos that these people, which, man, they went viral. Real quack. Real quack. Wow. I don't know where that came from. Real quick. And we'll talk about that on the platforms themselves. How many of you are going to come forward and say, you know what, I was wrong, I got out in front of my skis. That video I put out, that had millions of views. That's my bad, I was incorrect. My guess is almost nobody. And I guess my question with that is. Hypocrite much, right? You want to point the finger at a different entity or organization for making claims that were proven later to be false or have factual inaccuracies. I hope you are willing to stand up in front of the things that you have created and said yourself and do exactly the same. Because if you're not, what does that say about you? Another question that I have, then this one is one of the ones that I'm spending some ceiling time on. That is, is there actually more hate in this country than there ever has been? The actions in Utah were not driven by love. They were driven by hate. Hate for an idea, hate for a person, hate for what that person, they thought that they stood for, the totality of who they are. And I'll talk about that in a minute, too. And is there more of that in this country or are we at a place where we are actually now just able to see more of the hate and we can engage with it? And if you're not cautious, you can be overwhelmed by it. I don't think there is actually any more hateful people in the US Than when I was growing up. From a. I guess it would be. I mean, there are more people in the US for sure, as the population is growing. Let's just say from a ratioed perspective, I'm gonna throw a number out if 1% of people were hateful, I have no idea by the way on this, I'm just throwing this out. If 1% of the people were this way when I was growing up, I'm saying that 1% of the people I think are still this way. And if that's the case, and that's the assumption, and I'm gonna be the first to admit that this is actually a hypothesis that I don't have data to support, but I am reinforced in this, in my actual day to day living in the real world interactions. If that's the case, then what has changed? Now I don't have anything to point at causes of what happened, but I do think something that was corollary to what leads to that is the introduction of smartphones and social media, which I'll be the first to tell you, can have immense positive impact. I don't think we are paying attention to the potentially unlimited downside of those devices in the platforms themselves. I had had an interaction with somebody close to my family, I'll leave their name completely out of it. But I noticed in the days after what happened, a volume of posting and it wasn't original content, it was reposting of other people's content originally. Not originally. I eventually reached out to this person and I started asking questions like do you have any evidence or data to back up that post that you just made? Do you have any actual proof that what you are claiming by reposting that is true? And every time the answer was no. And it actually got to a place where this person said, well, I don't think that this group or person would post that if it weren't real. And that scares the crap out of me because that is somebody who doesn't understand what the Internet is. That is somebody who has decided they're going to outsource their objectivity and critical thinking to somebody else or something else? And I don't know where that leads, but I don't think it's good. The same person, I don't think they understand the platforms that we use, and I hope that most people intuitively do understand this. But these phones, of which I am as guilty as anybody else is using, and these social media platforms, which I am as guilty as anybody else is using, we all realize, right, that they are not by design showing you an unbiased smattering of information that is available out there. They are by design trying to keep you on the platform for as long as possible because your attention span is their currency. Because then they can sell that towards ads and at the same time, they're trying to learn as much about you as humanly possible. So there's the algorithm and then there's engagement. You know, the algorithm. People are like, oh, it's this person in the shadows twisting their mustache. What I really think the algorithm is, I used to say a team of people, but at this point it's probably AI, maybe designed by a team of people, is a program that is watching. And I don't think it's actually coming through the camera. Maybe it is, I don't know. But instead of watching, that's not. It's recording or analyzing. What are you scrolling? How fast are you scrolling? What are you stopping on? What are you spending your time? They're probably going to assume looking at, if you pause, what do you click on? What do you engage with? Okay, if I want to keep somebody involved on my platform more, what am I going to do? Feed them more of what they don't engage with and scroll by or give them more of what they do engage with and pay attention to. Now, if you're aware of that and you constantly can bring your head up and take a breath and remind yourself that what you see online is not in the real world, I think you're going to be okay. If you don't recognize that's going on, you could spiral down out of control. So deep into these places where I think you lose all sense of reality. I actually think I have an understanding of that. So if it's about engagement, ask yourself, what do you see more of? Things that inspire you, which I would say that's an emotional response in a positive manner, or things that anger you, which is emotional response, probably in a negative manner. In my personal experience, and in talking with quite a few people, it is well towards the negative emotional reaction, the anger, and I would say sometimes even just pure hatred. But the more you engage with it, the more you see, the more you see of those things. Again, if you're not lifting your head up and looking at the real world, you might actually think that that is the world that we are living in. Not realizing you're working on an interfacing in an artificial ecosystem that yes, has aspects of the real world in it and you can interface with people in places that you would never see, but because they are interested in engagement, your engagement, it is so far from being unbiased and it is so driven by your behavior to continue to engage that they're going to show you whatever they can to keep you on that platform. If you start thinking that that is the real world around us. You have lost the forest for the trees. And I don't know what to do about that other than I actually still think social media should come with a warding label. I mean, there's a lethal dose, right? An LD to water. You actually can drink enough water to kill yourself. It exists on ibuprofen, something that people think is a very helpful to include myself, medication. If you stub your toe into a wall, something I've done many times, whatever it may be, aches and pains, you can take that and it can help. Can you kill yourself with ibuprofen? Yeah. You 100% can. I don't think we live in a more hate filled world than we did before, but people are being bombarded with hate and it's making them feel as if that is the case. If you get deep enough down this rabbit hole. Can you imagine a world where somebody in their early 20s who doesn't have a fully formed prefrontal cortex has no real understanding of the concept of time? And I'm making no excuse by any stretch for the actions that were taken. I'm just describing an adult male in that phase of their life. Some mature faster than others. But can you see a world where immersion in the online world, absent the reality and sanity check of the real world, could drive somebody towards a place where they think taking an action like that makes sense? I can. I'm not saying that's what happened, but. But I am saying that I am extremely worried that we are headed in that direction. These things need to come with warning labels. The social media platforms should have a maximum exposure. What I'd really love to see is for the platforms to be compelled and forced to show how it is. They decide what to serve you, when, how. And I'd love to get their behind the scenes. Cause they have to be tracking this in some way, some version of positive versus negative. And if they're knowingly serving people more outrage than positivity, I think we need to do something about that. Okay, next on the list. This is a tough one. People aren't going to like this one because I've seen a lot of finger pointing in the last eight days. And this is just my personal opinion. And all of this stuff is just my personal opinion. I'm a random dude telling people what I think about something that I've been struggling with. But you can take or leave my personal opinion. I think both sides, and by that I mean of the political aisle, because it seems to be the only way we can view our country at this point have blood on their hands. One of the most common things I'm seeing is, well, I only did or said or posted this fill in the blank because so and so on the other side did this. It was their side who escalated it. I have to do this to make up for what they did. Finger pointing galore. And there is an immense amount of hypocrisy in this, which I don't understand. I don't understand why people think they have to blindly support one side and how it's not okay to call balls and strikes even on the side that you do support. To me, that's a sign of actual strength, not a sign of weakness. But like, hey, generally this is where I fall on this. But I don't agree with everything this person says or does. Oh, and by the way, I've never met a human being that I agree with completely. I've never had 100% alignment with a person, political party, ever. When did it become a sign of weakness to be able to objectively look at things and call balls and strikes? And I know why people don't want to. They're afraid to that if they do call a strike, or actually, what would it be? A ball. If they do call something on their side or they call something out on their side that they don't like, they're afraid of being consumed by the other people that are on their side, let alone the other side of the aisle. And it doesn't have to be like that. Again, where's that escalation lead us to? And I'm gonna use a good example right here. This is very recent. Jimmy Kimmel versus Brian Kilmeade. You can go online and research what both of them said. I think it'd be fair to say that those two individuals arrive on different side of the political aisle. Jimmy's probably more on the left, Brian's more on the right. Jimmy was in essence describing to his audience that the right was attempting to frame the shooter as somebody who came from the left. He did it on two different occasions, which is my understanding. People like, oh, he's a comedian. I get that comedians aren't always making a joke and what you do for a living, you know, by that title, it's probably shouldn't be like this blanket protection. Let's take it individual situation at a time. Brian Kilmeade, on the other side, when talking about. They were discussing the stabbing, I believe it was on a bus of a homeless man stabbing the Ukrainian woman. Stabbed her in the neck and she bled to death. They were talking about homeless and Brian Kilman said they should involuntarily have lethal injection or something. His words just kill them. Now people are celebrating Jimmy Kimmel getting pulled down for what he said on the right while having zero outrage for what Brian Kilmeade said on his right leaning show. Hypocrite much? Where he at? Where is the outrage from somebody on your side of the aisle? Why is all your energy allocated towards the other side? How about this? Both of those people in that moment, not that they are idiots, acted like idiots. Why is Brian Kilmeade and I've met him a few times, I actually did his show once, I have no direct tie, don't follow his work exclusively or even closely at all. Why is he allowed to go back on Fox News and apologize for what he said and maintain his job and Jimmy Kimmel is immediately pulled off the air? I don't have an answer to that question other than it's incredibly hypocritical. It's really easy to look across the street and judge your neighbor. Maybe we should spend an equal amount of time looking at our side of the street and picking up our own trash before complaining about how other people are dealing with theirs. It is an assault on free speech and it's happening on both sides. But I tell you one thing that's come out of this, and this is going to go back to what's going on with Jimmy Kimmel. It seems to be very clear that the Trump administration, through the fcc, threatened ABC now and again. I'm using words that I have seen from the written word. I've seen this from left and right reading media outlets at this point. But there's a reason why the First Amendment is number one on the list. I don't think it's accidental that it was number 10 or that it wasn't number 10. Right. The First Amendment is protection from the government coming after you. Now, a lot of people have lost their jobs from their civilian employees and they're, they're saying, well, this is bs. What about free speech? No, no, no. You were free to say what you wanted to. But depending on the state that you are employed in and how you were hired and your hiring documents, if you're at will, like guess what? Your civilian employer can fire you. People say, if we had free speech, we could say fire in a movie theater. You can say fire in a movie theater. You're just not free from the consequences of doing so. If you have one of these devices and a platform, and you want to broadcast things out. You have. You are. I don't know of anything that could be more free. You can say what you want. You are free in your expression, and in certain situations and circumstances, you are free from the government doing anything about that. But it doesn't extend to civilians, privately owned companies. And how that's lost is a little bit beyond me. Freedom of speech does not equal freedom of consequences. Well, what is the fcc? It's a government entity. If it was at the direction of the president, threatening a civilian corporation, to me, we are bouncing right up against the limits of the first amendment. And then what I think goes beyond it, and I don't know if this is going to actually go anywhere, but the attorney general, Pam Bondi, was talking about speech and hate speech and talking about putting laws into place that would regulate or censor hate speech. I'm not a constitutional scholar. I've never claimed to be. I don't even claim to be an intelligent person. Like I said, I am a random dude trying to figure out his way through life. And if we go down that path of trying to quantify and censor hate speech, I don't know if we can recover from that as a country. Is there speech that is hateful? Yep. Probably hurtful? Absolutely. Who gets to define that? There is. You know, and I hope that people, and this is. I feel like people's face are so close to the problem at this point. Trying to take a step back. And I look at this. There's a gotcha question that is often attributed with people trying to debate those that align with the left. And the gotcha question of the modern era is this. What is a woman? And the problem is, biologically, we know the answer to that. I actually think most of the people who are struggling to answer that question on the left, they know the answer to it as well. They're bouncing up against some of their other moral beliefs and a desire to not infringe on anybody else's right to do whatever they want to do in their answer. But it makes it look really, really sloppy. And it's this gotcha moment where you can't explain one of your core beliefs that you believe in. If you don't think that what is hate speech is gonna become the gotcha moment for people on the right. I don't know what to tell you because good luck defining that what is hateful to one person may not be hateful to another. Now, of course, are the things like, you know, why is fire In a movie theater. Why are there consequences to that? Because you're endangering people. The action that you are trying to elicit from others. And again, I'm not a constitutional scholar. I can understand that. But who gets to decide what speech is hateful? I don't want to. Because there are some things that are horrendous that people say, but I don't want them saying them in the shadows. I want people saying things like that out in public with their devices. Why? Because then consequences can come from that they don't get to hide. I want the microscope and spotlight put on those people. If what happened to Charlie Kirk is used as a lever to infringe on our First Amendment rights, I don't know if we will recover from that as a nation. And given that the Republican Party is currently in power, I believe the people who are going to have the loudest voice in making sure that doesn't happen are people from the right. And this is where I don't understand why it has not become. Or why it has become taboo to call balls and strikes with your own party. Why can't you say, you know what? I support this administration on almost everything that they're doing, but this is wrong, and I'm going to fight you on this because our country is going to survive this administration, and we need to be at least some semblance of a country when that happens, based off of the founding documents that this country was based upon. But I see people unwilling to do that because of the potential backlash. Well, guess what? If you want to have a country that actually means something, at the end of the day, you better step up and stand up for what you believe. I land. I was describing to somebody the other day, and I stole this from Richard Ryan. Probably the best description of me is a libertarian that borders on just about anarchy. I want the government out of my life to the maximum degree possible. I want people happy, secure, safe, equality of opportunity, being able to pursue their dreams however they want to. I want the government out of people's lives to the maximum extent possible. Some issues I land more right on. Some issues I land more left on. On this one. I don't care where you are. An assault on the First Amendment needs to be addressed by both sides. But I'm telling you right now, the. The side that has the most value in this argument, only because the administration currently happens to be in office on the right, is the right itself. You gonna get some backlash for it. Maybe, yeah. Is the country worth it? Yeah, I think so. Had an email exchange with somebody the other day, and I'll try to wrap it up. I know I've been rambling for a while. People are probably tired of hearing me talk, and I want to leave all the details out of the individual. One of the paragraphs, he said, Charlie Kirk was a cunt, but he didn't deserve to die. And I highlighted that in my email response. We actually had a very nice exchange back and forth. And before I cut and paste that, what I said to him was, have you ever considered that you're part of the problem? Because do you actually know Charlie Kirk? Do you actually know the person? Let me say this. I was aware of who. I didn't follow Charlie Kirk on any social platforms. I was aware of who he was, didn't really engage with his content. I have seen far more of his content now than I have before his death, which I think is probably true. Well, unless you followed him. For those of you who didn't follow me, probably now seen a lot more than you have before. But now that I've seen a lot of that content. Do I know Charlie Kirk? I know some of his ideas, but do I actually know him? For people who have listened to the podcast from day one, do you actually know me? You know how I think about probably almost every issue at this point. You know some of my ideas, you see me have some swings and misses, some successes, some failures, but do you actually know me? Or is our interaction based off just what you see online? Do you see me on my good days and my bad days? I'm here to tell you you'd see me on both and my bad days. I'm probably a little bit shorter and less likely to engage on some stuff. And maybe on my good days, I have a little bit more energy to bring to the table. But you're not there with me on my high moments and my low moments. You're not there with me with the ups and downs of my life and everything that I do that is not on camera, that actually makes me who I am. I am more than the sum total of my ideas that you may see on the Internet. Granted, it might be easy to forget that if all you really see of me and you don't have the chance to get to know me in person is what you see online. But maybe let's remember that just because you see some things from somebody, the noises that are coming out of their mouth, you consider them to be dangerous ideas, you consider them to be disgusting ideas, you consider them to be wrong ideas. Does that mean you actually know the person. It does not. And that is what I said to that individual. And this leads me to what in the world can anybody do about this? And here's my plan. That's all I can leave people with. Here's my plan, and here's where I land on this. Small changes can have a large and magnified impact over time. For anybody who's been listening to the show, let's call it, for the last year, you may have noticed, and hopefully people have. Over about the last month and a half, I have drastically reduced the number of curse words that I use because the language that I use, specifically those words was becoming far, far too common for my own liking. I would come back and listen to segments of the episode. My God, I. How would anybody or why would anybody listen to what I have to say? I'm using the same word to describe 50 different things. I'm very cautious. And many other aspects on the show. I'll give you some examples of people. Here are things that I hear people say that I refuse to because I believe they need to have meaning. Libtards is a good one. Maga, fascist, Nazi, et cetera. I know what those words mean. I know the meaning that those words have to me. But the number of people that I see letting those words fly out of their mouth without a second thought is pretty shocking. And let's be honest, it's an intellectually lazy way to describe a person, place or thing. It's quicker, it allows you to dismiss them, but it's intellectually weak and it's intellectually lazy. And that's what I realized with my usage of foul language. I still use it from time to time, but. But actually now, even in the moment, sometimes it slips out. But even I realize that it did for a reason. And because I'm using it less, to me at least, it has far more meaning for people who use language like that. And it just flies out. And I don't care what your excuse or reason is, be better make a small change in your life, because I'm gonna tell you right now, especially if you are actually interested in having a conversation or even changing somebody's mind by removing those intellectually weak terms, you're going to have a better chance of doing so. If you open up with an insult right away, nobody's going to pay attention to you. Be better than that. We all have room for improvement. It's something that I've actively been trying to do for about the last 90 days. Some of the episodes have been recorded before that. So, yeah, hopefully that people have noticed a substantial difference. I feel like a lot of people are sitting in a room that is too hot waiting for somebody else to turn the temperature down. And I mean that by anger, vitriol, argument, all of those things, we recognize it's happening. People are just sitting around like, man, I'm sweating my ass off in this room. Wish somebody would turn it down. Okay, could you take a jacket off? Could you take your coat off? Could you walk over to the thermostat and click it down a degree or two? Yeah, you could. But too many people will say, there's nothing that I can do. And I completely and utterly disagree with that. There's always something that we can do. I would recommend, and this is something I've done multiple times over the last week, is take about five minutes and just take stock of yourself. Where is your anger coming from? And this is a tough one because I'll give you an example that I bet you every married person has ever had in their life. You get into a disagreement with your significant other that you love more than anything in the world and you find yourself very angry at the person. But if you were to take stock at what actually happened, are you angry at the person or are you angry at what they said? And the reality that perhaps it's true and that's the hardest look at all, looking inward at yourself as opposed to pushing that away and blaming it on somebody else. What's the source of your anger? If as a person you are finding yourself emotionally engaged and involved with what you're seeing on your devices, I would recommend managing your engagement and your exposure. Here's a great way to start this. Are you spending more time in the real world than on your device? Are you doom scrolling for hours, multiple times per day? There are people out there, I know them that do that. And I bet you in the totality of a day, subtract the time that they're sleeping. They are spending more time online than in the real world. And that to me is a recipe for disaster. Because the online world is not reflective of what I am seeing in the real world. And I think for most people that is true. But if you can ask yourself, where is your anger coming from? What is the actual source? If it's tied to one of these, put it down. Not forever, but maybe do an experiment for yourself for a week, drastically reduce it, and then objectively ask yourself, was that week better for my life or worse? Ask people that you care about and love. Hey, did you notice Any behavior differences in me this week, don't tell them what you had done. Just ask them if they've seen a difference. I think you're going to be shocked at the answer. And I think the last thing I'll close on this, I see a lot of people screaming across the street saying, you need to change, you need to change, you need to change, you need to change. This is your fault, this is your fault, this is your fault. Before ever asking somebody whether or not they are willing to change, I think it's a better approach to ask yourself if you are willing to change, are you willing to listen? Are you willing to modify your behavior? Because if you're demanding something from somebody else that you are unwilling to do yourself, what does that say about you? So what am I going to do? Because that's all I can do. And at a micro level, it might have no impact, but if it can benefit my life in a positive way in the lives of others, I'm going to do it. My initial response to this was is I'm going to burn all my social media to the ground and just be completely off of social media. It has made me not want to engage in all in any of these platforms. I just cannot bring myself to do it. It is like the most tainted kiddie pool where somehow there was a collection of both donkeys and newborns that all shared this kiddie pool and all just took dumps in it. And I'm sitting there, going to dive headfirst into it. I just don't want to. I'm going to engage deeper offline. I am going to drastically limit my usage of these devices. Even though I'm not engaging or participating, these devices are tracking me just like anybody else. Am I looking and seeing those videos, the conspiracy theories I talked about? Yep. Guess what is recommending more of those. I'm going to be very more intentful with the things that I search for and what I spend my time on and very, very intentional about looking at what is being presented to me and then asking myself the question, why? Why am I seeing these as suggestions? I'm going to police myself accordingly. And the last thing is, and I'll. And I'll leave everybody with this, is I'm never going to stop telling people to not give up. At least on this platform. I can put out into the world what I consider to be positivity, which is all I want to do. I want to have a positive impact on the world around me. And I am never going to stop telling people to never Give up. I don't think we're at a place where we can't salvage this. But I am not sure if we continue down this path. People seem to think that there are enemies everywhere. I'm here to tell you, regardless of what your belief are, unless you're a pedophile, I am not your enemy. Actually, there's some other caveats to that. You know, there are very radical ideas out there. And there's a difference between somebody who has a radical idea and somebody willing to take action on a radical idea. But I'm not one of your enemies, and I don't think your neighbors are either. But somehow we have forgotten that. And if we can't, even for five seconds after a public assassination that the vast majority of US Citizens saw in near real time, take a moment to think about that. What does that say about us in a country? What would it take for us to have that pause, to take a beat, to realize that maybe we are being manipulated just by the information that we are seeing, not by some overlord, but just by the devices that we have been told make our lives possible and better? What if we're not smart enough to handle these things? What if we're not evolved enough to handle this bombardment of negativity that we get on these devices? Again, I don't think there's any more natural disasters that are happening in the world in 2025 than there were in 1970. But guess what? I now hear about every single one of them. It doesn't mean that there's any more or less, but I'm bombarded with that. It's not a good thing your neighbor isn't your enemy. And I don't know how we get back to that. But I do think it comes from being able to call balls and strikes and look for alignment and agreement where possible, and then be able to openly and objectively discuss where there is disagreement with without it degrading to a place of vilifying your neighbor. So that's what I'm going to plan to do. I feel like I rambled for far too long. Hopefully some of this makes sense to somebody. It's cathartic for me to put it out there, but it's been a rough week. Not a week that I thought I was going to have. Not a week that I thought I was going to have the conversations I did with my kids. It sucks that they're in a world where they know that that's a scroll away. And it sucks for your kids, too. And I'm Sorry that everybody out here who hear this had to see that. I had to see that. Not a lot in my old job, but I knew what I was getting into. And even then it still has impact. So if it is bothering you, this is what I'll close it on. If it is bothering you and you and you can't put it down, please don't try to push it down. Just talk about it. Friends, family, social circle, whatever you may need to. Professional help is always great. Don't let it eat at you. Try to put it down to the best of your ability. Sometimes that takes a lot of work. And that's all I have for this Friday.
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C
Hi, I'm Chris Gethard and I'm very excited to tell you about Beautiful Anonymous, a podcast where I talk to random people on the phone. I tweet out a phone number. Thousands of people try to call. Talk to one of them. They stay anonymous. I can't hang up. That's all the rules. I never know what's going to happen. We get serious ones. I've talked with meth dealers on their way to prison. I've talked to people who survived mass shootings, crazy, funny ones. I talked to a guy with a goose laugh, somebody who dresses up as a pirate on the weekends. I never know what's going to happen. It's a great show. Subscribe today. Beautiful Anonymous.