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In The Audit, comedian Dave Anthony and screenwriter Josh Olson audit a variety of online classes, docuseries, and other media products created by noxious political figures and boil them down to the good stuff. By which they mean… the bad stuff.
With the rise of MasterClass, TED talks, and celebrity biographies, the country’s political elite are bombarding us with information so we can be just like them. But who has time to devote to all that self-congratulatory navel-gazing?
That’s where The Audit comes in. Dave, Josh and a rotating coterie of guest hosts will consume depraved educational content for the time-pressed listener, then regurgitate a short-form review detailing the sociopathy and insanity baked into the messages. It’s like listening to someone present a book report — except all of the authors are deranged lunatics who are poisoning American culture.
[VIDEO] 0:00
producers studios production companies no matter they probably don't beat their children they wouldn't think of running over a dog. They treat writers like chattel. And we are absolutely dispensable once they have gotten what they want out of us, which is the script until they get the script, man, they just are the most sycophantic brown nosers you've ever seen. Once they get that those pages in their hands, you could be hit by a Peterbilt and they wouldn't give a fuck. So and then they feel that says they can do whatever they want. And here comes a director a year later, and says, Well, I see it this way. And I see this and I see that you you want to get your vision you write the goddamn script, where were you when the page was blank
[MUSIC] 0:58
you seen our schools as a back, pass fail, grade or if they fail pass
if you want, you got your key But
this ain't the jam champagne. This is a yacht.
Dave Anthony 1:50
You're listening to the audit with Josh Olson and Dave Anthony. The only one thing I would say is he shouldn't say you write it like I don't think he should ever say that to everything else encouraging. You don't even give them that option. At all.
Josh Olson 2:12
I would love to take that up with him. But sadly, sadly will not be able to. That was a my dear friend and yours. The great Harlan Ellison, on the subject of writers and I thought we thought we'd open with that this week because we got some interesting stuff going on in the writers world. I think I think you'll agree don't you Dave pertains to the world at large. Yeah, it does. WGA the union that we're members of has gone on strike Wilga will go we are will go west, there are people who will get he will get East has already scored some blood they managed to shut down. American Horror Story yesterday. I'm told it could be last week when you hear this. But the stakes are high. They are really, really high. The the evolution I can't believe I'm talking about the people who ran things back when we were out on strike in 2007. But there was at least an element of I don't know blood to these people. There was there was a little leave if they didn't want to admit it a little interest in creating every now and then a little bit of good content, as they call it. I think there's this this guy Zaslav over at Warner Brothers kind of personifies the new mentality that we're up against the two things I keep thinking of we've joked about this, but this is someone who thinks changing HBO to max is somehow and does it for entirely purely financial reasons. That makes sense, I suppose to him and some accountant. It just kind of symbolizes something the fact that they killed $100 million Bat Girl movie, which was by all accounts, okay. Well, you've heard but everyone I know who's seen it or known people who've seen it. It ranges from find a pretty good. It was literally some some accountant realized that if you just move a few numbers around, you can take a bigger write down off of it than you spent. And that's it. Very good. It's gone. And they are paying writers horribly. You know, you notice all these shows now or like six episodes or eight episodes instead of the old 22 Back in the day or even 1013. But writers are getting paid the same or less. And they're committed to the shows for the same period of time. And you have this phenomenon the last few years of people who are writing on fairly successful TV shows who can like barely afford a one bedroom apartment if that. And then there's AI which is still in its kind of nascent stages, but there's absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind. What these people want to do is start using AI To write stuff now, I don't think anyone's so stupid as to think you can write a feature like film script, or even a TV show even even a formulaic CSI or law and order thing strictly with AI. But what you can do, and I think what they're aiming to do, we haven't talked about this day, but I think that the plan is, right first draft with AI, and then you hire us to come in and do a polish. And that's, that's less money. And you bring us into, add the little dollops, if you will, that make it sound like a human being, hey,
Dave Anthony 5:32
hey, if you want to bring me in to polish up an AI script, I will do the worst job you've ever seen.
Josh Olson 5:40
I was I had an interesting conversation with a friend last night, there's a thing in music, I'm gonna botch this completely. But there's a thing in music. That's, that's measurable, where when you have musicians playing together, there's always going to be one person or more, who's just like 1/1000 of a second off on the beat. And the other musicians or other musician trying to connect to that, trying to make up for it, and so forth. And it's in constant motion unconscious, is actually where you get this kind of excitement from. It's an amazing, it brings an amazing quality music. It tells you it's live and again, you're not noticing it. I'm I don't think you're crazy. Listen to it. You listen to the most fucking thumpingly dopey music. I like neither of us are competent enough to discuss this. But it is in that imperfection that the excitement of music comes out. And they've tried in, especially in pop music to try to replicate this via algorithms. And apparently, it has the exact opposite impact. It makes the music painful to listen to. And that Sure, yeah, and that seems to me to be sort of at the core of the whole thing. Everything I've read by AI just lacks something. It's a lifeless,
Dave Anthony 6:58
I mean, so you don't like you're not a sports fan. But baseball has been sort of destroyed by statistics and computers. And the whole game is now run by computers. The managers aren't making decisions. They're told what to do by the front office who looked at their stats and do these things. And there's no humanity to the sport anymore. It's been. And now they're talking about getting rid of the umpires and just having robots called balls and strikes and everything they do. They're using computers to dehumanize the sport. Now, on the other hand, they're trying to make it more exciting by having guys flip bats more and wear crazy hats. Like they're trying to overcome. Trying to overcome the the the failure of what they've created,
Josh Olson 7:49
do something wild and unpredictable. And there's
Dave Anthony 7:53
there's a ton of people who are who are like me who are like, Yeah, I can't watch it anymore. It's just like, like they've ruined the sport. It's boring. It's a boring sport now, because computers came in and told everybody how to do everything. And now there's no, like, you know exactly where it guys can hit a ball, because that's where he always hits the ball. So the guy goes and stands there and catches it, like it's just boring as fuck, right? And, and the one thing I will say is that dumber people are attracted to the sport. Now, when previously, I think smarter people were attracted to the sport, I think it's just a dumbing down of everything. And they can't figure out what's wrong and what's happening. And it's very obvious what's going on. And so I think with this, it's the same thing, I think they will try and they will fail. And they will fail for a long time until they figure out, oh, this doesn't work. Or you have an independent studio that just goes by the way, our scripts are written by writers. And they will make gobs of money because you will have failures and you have successes, but you will have movies that pop out that are like a Kaufman film and you're gonna be like, Well, fuck that the computer couldn't have written that. Right? So
Josh Olson 9:10
yeah, imagine because that's a thing that was based on pumping a bunch of pre existing material, previous stuff bunch of scripts into it into a thing and letting it sort of analyze the commonalities. And you can do that to a certain extent on you know, again, law and order and that's an oddball order it's a procedural it follows a pattern. But imagine pumping like five Charlie Kaufman scripts into a thing and expecting it
Dave Anthony 9:35
comes, you know, I pitch back into or, you know, and we've been, like, I've written on shows and I've had, there are writers that are like AI, like, they're just terrible fucking writers. And their show runners that are like that, and they go through and they chop everything up and they make it bad. So we already have that. So I don't think we need more of like, like, you need more good writers. You need people that are gonna bring some Anything interesting to a script? And like what they like, and I know exactly what they want. So when I wrote on Deadly Class, I wrote a script. And at one point, the, the not the showrunner, the, the other EP, who was there, who was trying to destroy the show and take it over, took my script. And he goes, we're going to cut this down. And he just started slashing it, like literally in 10 minutes, cut this, cut this cut this. And I had a scene that was like, straight out of the battle line. But at the end, I just had one character with another character and go, have you ever seen a live human eaten by a pig and the other guy goes, of course I have. And he cut that. And he cut that out. And I went, he cut that out and I went, that's like, that's like the thing you don't cut. Shit, that's not going to. That's the kind of shit that's not going to be there anymore. It's going to be A to B, A to C, A to D and then that little weird thing that makes it the writers own will that will that will be gone. And you'll have you'll have very generic like even in a law and order episode, someone's going to throw in a weird line like that. Someone's going to have the kid
Josh Olson 11:09
know. Exactly. They will that's yeah. And and that'll
Dave Anthony 11:13
be gone. Because number one they'll have aI doing it. But number two, good writers aren't going to do this. Good writers are not going to stick around for this bullshit system and go in and polish up your bullshit scripts. They're gonna fucking leave. And it's happening all over show business. Go watch commercials now people don't really watch commercials. But I used to be a commercial actor. Commercials some commercials were fucking better than TV shows funniest shit really good commercials. Those are kind of gone. The union was destroyed. And they they got and now all they basically d U d unionized commercials is very far, you know, very few union commercials. And commercials now suck. They're the acting is terrible. The directing is terrible. They're boring. And they're stupid. Because these guys have come in with all their fucking money and destroyed the system that made those little things creative. They're gone.
Josh Olson 12:22
But that is what's happening. And this one really is existential. Because I think. And what's interesting is, people have been through this, you've been through this. The strike already even a couple of days into it is nothing like the last one. And people are getting that there was a meeting last night or last week as you're listening to this of the WGA was the first the first big meeting strike was called and at that meeting were major representatives from every other union in the industry sag and DGA and the Teamsters and AI. And I no way I was there as far as we know. And we've never seen that before. They were there in solidarity with the Writers Guild. And usually in the past, what I've tried to do is set the unions against each other. i The writers are putting a lot of work. And everyone gets it now and we've been living and that's not just because of what's going on in the industry. It's what's going on in the country. And people I think, you know, union membership has been expanding rapidly in the last few years, people really started to get that this is like the last place where we have a chance and having a voice at pushing back on, you know, late stage or in stage capitalism. It's heartening, but I think it's really, really important that people understand because it's already started, you're gonna see more of this. You know, the like, Oh, they're also rich, or this or that. No, they're not. And no, they're not the fact that you can point to a few people who are does not discount the fact that Dave Anthony
Dave Anthony 13:59
Sorkin doesn't represent all of us?
Josh Olson 14:02
Yeah, exactly. Right. And
Dave Anthony 14:07
pretty easy. Is he out in front of this? Is he talking a lot,
Josh Olson 14:09
ya know, some of the usual people. And yeah, let's talk about somebody. Yeah, I have not. I think they got their asses handed to them. Well, there was also a Labor Action. Several years back where there was a sort of crew of kind of well to do show on are types are trying to run a slate to take over the gills and shut down labor agent in which we were Labor Action, which were renegotiating our contract with our agents. And the whole process was wildly successful. But there's a bunch of people that felt like it may have been the last gasp of them. I don't know. But yes, Sorkin was a supporter of it. Craig Mason was originally running to be the head of it. He has in the interim gotten a lot of love from liberals for the stuff he wrote about Ted Cruz, who was his Yes, college roommate, like And Chernobyl and then Chernobyl, which people took it as something other than the sort of screed against communism data. And I was gonna hit show and I don't think he I think he's, I think he's gonna lay low on this one. I think he's gonna stay quiet.
Dave Anthony 15:14
Yeah. Yeah, he very obviously realizes now what his audiences and he knows if he goes against this he'll upset his audience. So he's not going to usual anti union bullshit.
Josh Olson 15:26
Yeah. And I think even Sargon has recognized that the public's perception of these things has shifted away from nothing was ever with him but away from a big, big, big, not really an opponent. But he badmouth that union a lot over the years and has never been a big supporter of these actions. My favorite, there's a thing couple days ago, a friend of mine actually exact stents wrote a piece in The New York Times just kind of was an op ed explaining what the stakes are and what we were striking for. And one of the things he talked about was residuals, which are, you know, basically when as long as your show is running, and people are seeing it, something you wrote, you get you get a tiny piece of any new money that comes in on that. And he has a great, great editorial, I recommend everyone, check it out. The New York Times in their wisdom, the title they gave it, I tell you this Dave is great. If Hollywood wants to survive, it needs to pay writers to do nothing. I mean, look, that's the New York Times make strong union lovin?
Dave Anthony 16:33
Yeah, I mean, look, here's here's how it breaks down a long time ago, the studios and all the talent sat down and said, How do we make this work? And how you make it work is you have a talent pool of unemployed people to choose from, at all times. And the way you make that work is, well, how do we know they're talented? Well, they've worked on shows before, and now they get money for having been on that show. While they're not on the show. It keeps them alive, surviving. So you can come back to that pool and choose your writers. If you don't have that money coming in after the show's over the residuals, then that pool doesn't exist. And now you have no writers to choose from. It was them who helped set this up, because back then they weren't total fucking idiots. And now these late stage capitalism, assholes don't know shit, and are fucking dumb. And think how they handled Toys R Us is how they should handle every business in the country.
Josh Olson 17:31
Yeah. And people are getting that. No, I think. But I mean, to me, at the end of the day, this is, you know, the same mentality that thinks it makes sense to change HBO, to max is now trying to turn every writer in Hollywood into a gig worker. So, right, if you're listening to this, and you're in the union, we're with you, you'll be able to bump into us on the line maybe. And if you're not in the business, you know, just keep in mind, no matter what you read, in things like the New York Times, and so forth, we are out there fighting the good fight, and it's not just so you can keep getting your daily dose of you know, whatever Star Wars Show, it is you're addicted to this stuff actually matters. It's important, I shouldn't
Dave Anthony 18:19
say, and, essentially, the unions were alone, you know, the Democrats aren't going to do anything as Gavin Newsom came out and said work it out. And yeah, they're there
Josh Olson 18:29
to come to us when once this is out of talk, there'll be
Dave Anthony 18:33
you know that these are their buddies. You know, Chelsea Clinton is married to a hedge fund guy, they're all the whole the whole crew is all loving the hedge fund people. So you know, this is this is us against them.
Josh Olson 18:44
Yeah, though, God knew something was astonishing. He was like, nobody's going to me yet. But if they want to, let me come in and help and they're both willing to talk and, and negotiate, I'm supportive of that. It's like
Dave Anthony 18:57
yeah, thanks.
Josh Olson 18:58
I hear there's fine people on both sides. Dave. This podcast is brought to you by the lever, the award winning reader supported investigative news outlet. If you want to support our show, there's a few ways you can do it first become a paid supporter to the lever and this is going to give you access to our bonus content, as well as their premium podcast feed and all kinds of good stuff. And if you want to make a one time contribution that goes to me and Dave, and the Gremlins who work with us, like Colin who's responsible for infecting your brain with our horrifying Praeger, you theme song but you can't get out of your head. And Brian siano, our research guy, free floating agent of chaos, you can leave us a tip at lever news.com/audit and you'll see a button for the tip jar. You can just go directly to our Venmo page at the audit at Venmo. Under businesses. Follow us on Twitter, right if you follow us on Twitter. Yeah, at the audit podcast Email us at the audit podcast@gmail.com. And then I want to say we haven't done this on a pre show. But it's just like I just saw this thing, I don't know where to fit it into an episode. And I just this feels like Dennis Prager, through and through to his core. I saw this thing, it was a little snip. It was an interview, and I watched some of it and there was a snippet. And it just goes to like, I don't know, if he believes what's coming out of his mouth at any given moment. I think he's been doing it long enough, it's possible. Or if he just assumes that the people who are paying attention to him are as dumb as the character he plays. I had a friend once, who once gave gave a speech. He was he was an inspirational kind of speaker nude. And he maintained for many years that it was impossible, it was possible to be successful and to go out in the world and create a phony persona. But you couldn't do it for decade after decade, because sooner or later, it would just fall apart. You couldn't keep it consistent. And his example for this, they've never told you this. A guy who clearly was exactly what he appears to be, because he's been doing it for 50 years. Five years of this, okay, anybody can do a 10 Maybe, but there's literally no way to put on this persona and not have it be sincere for as many decades. As Bill Cosby had done it. That was his. Wow. And because we kept up that facade for a lot longer that Dennis Prager has, so I, I don't know, I don't know if Prager sees through his own shit or not. I still don't after all this time?
Dave Anthony 21:47
I don't. I don't think he does. I think he's I don't think he sees through any of that.
Josh Olson 21:55
Well, here, here he is, on some some that he's on some some right wing talk show on YouTube. A little while ago. Yeah. Last week. He got involved in an imbroglio that as far as I can tell, isn't that interesting? You know, he came out saying porn is okay. And a lot of folks on the right cut very upset. And this is the middle of that conversation.
Dave Anthony 22:16
This fucking year being upset about that. Yeah. 2023 Yeah.
Jared Yates Sexton 22:23
There's a phrase in Hebrew that I learned very early in my yeshiva education. I'll say it in Hebrew for so that people will know I didn't make it up. Much of it. He caught Allah Hamas and it's not the thought that counts that note not that counts that is the essence, but the deed right. Judaism is very behaviorist and I am very behaviorist. And that that is a it goes to the to the essence of what my belief is. I want to know how you act. The left does this all the time? Oh, you treat gays beautifully. Like in my case. I am. I am my wife and I are godparents to a gay couples children. But the fact that I'm against a same sex marriage, that makes me a hater. So how I treat Jay gays is irrelevant. It's what I think this bothers me that your thoughts can be regarded as a demerit
Dave Anthony 23:24
No, I don't know what like I'm you listened to it and you go, not wanting to allow them to get married is how you treat them. You dumb as well, like, What are you talking about?
Josh Olson 23:37
But here's the thing. It's he's acting as though he has no life outside his interpersonal relationships. If your godfather, some gay kids in the back of your mind, you don't think gay people should get married? If you're not acting it out in some way. It's like, Oh, okay. All right. I don't care. I really don't care what you think. But he's Dennis fucking Prager. He's actively oppose gay marriage for ever. This is a guy who goes out and actively his actions are to to demonize gay people and to stop them from having it this is deep, deep has been doing it even after it became the law of the land. Check this out. This is him on CNN a few years ago,
Jared Yates Sexton 24:18
honestly, on whatever side you're on. I can't think frankly, of a more important issue, even including the economy than the definition of marriage. I think we are more likely to survive economically than we are the redefinition of
Dave Anthony 24:33
what the fuck is wrong, like Jesus Christ? What the fuck is wrong with these this stupidity? I mean, think about what marriage used to be. It was basically property ownership, like what the fuck are you talking about?
Josh Olson 24:46
But But beyond that, I mean, his argument that's the argument itself is moronic. But the fact that he thinks that people are judging him for what he thinks about gay marriage, he's out there actively trying to stop bit. He's trying to argue against basic human fucking rights for people. And then he thinks you're intolerant if you judge him for what he thinks about gay people it's for what you're doing against gay people. And it is such a stupid argument this clown that he's talking to sit there going nodding Oh, yeah. What you think it's like you should be able to think well, you want to think like he's not
Dave Anthony 25:24
sure. I think we I think we really need to we really need to talk to these dumb ass gay couple who have made him there. God.
Josh Olson 25:33
Yeah, I if anybody knows this gay couple that says prayers, claims, godparents. Soon we will provide a safe like, Oh, you want to come on and talk about how amazing he is? That's great, too. But you know, what I'm reminded of was, I can't remember what yeah, it was George Bush, senior who when he was getting criticized for his terrible AIDS policy and his lack of action on the subject, you know, and it was suggested in many quarters, that George Bush is homophobic. Somebody pointed out No, no, one of his best friends has a son who's dying of AIDS. And even while in the White House, he made a point of coming to visit him regularly.
Dave Anthony 26:14
Hey, look, look. Hey, Josh. I can't be racist, my mate is black.
Josh Olson 26:21
But imagine like the President of the United States who's actively whose indifference to like die gay people, kills people that could make the matter that he has a gay friend Holy fucking shit. Oh, God, you know if you live somewhere in the in the middle of the fucking desert, in some tiny little deserted town, you know, five people, and and one of them's gay, and they're your best friend. But you are against gay marriage. You're fine. Nobody cares. You're not having any impact. The only impact you're having is on your one gay friend and you're good to him. This guy's been on TV the radio for decades. He's actively campaigning to fucking hurt people. And he's complaining that he's being judged for what he thinks. And he's supposed to be this voice of reason. This guy who calmly reasoned things out using facts and never raises his voice. It's like, fucking hell. Hey, Dave. Hey, Caitlin.
Dave Anthony 27:22
Wow, that's what he's made for. He's made to hate he's something you're supposed to hate. And then he gets to be a victim like that's a cycle. Like that's that's the that's the it's been since the beginning. That's what's the conservative cycle of saying something horrendous. You get mad at them and go, you fucking idiot. And then they go see their mean, and they call me dumb. And you're like, Well, it's because you're fucking dumb. You're genuinely an idiot. And you're a terrible terrible person because you say horrible things about people. It's just it's just like, what's going on with the guy got killed in the subway? They're like, you're intolerant of people who kill people on the subway. Yeah, I am actually very intolerant of that.
Josh Olson 28:07
That I'm trying to think of oh my god, what was what was the guy the dude in New York? The vigilante in the 70s Yes,
Dave Anthony 28:19
Bernard gets Berg gets quantum by the way,
Josh Olson 28:25
on its way you did remember this a long time ago. The it didn't go well for him finally. might correct.
Dave Anthony 28:33
No, he it? It did. He's like that was squirrels. It was. Seriously, he's a squirrel guy. He's got a whole squirrel collection. It's really
Josh Olson 28:47
okay, well, yeah, I keep thinking like this feels new and worse than usual. And then I remember him way back in the 70s. It's like okay, maybe not, but oh my god.
Dave Anthony 28:59
I mean, I think he went to jail. I remember he was there. Oh, yeah. He got acquitted of a bunch of it. He served eight months. So there you go. So he killed shot four people and served eight months. It's the same thing. I mean, it's you know, we're it's not the same thing. What am I saying? We we've completely normalized the killing of the most at risk people in our society for three years. And if you don't think that has anything to do with people's response to someone choking out and murdering a homeless guy on the subway, you don't know what's happening. Once you start normalizing debt mass death your country is in a very very, very precarious place.
Josh Olson 29:42
Yeah, this is this is very bad shit. And it's disturbing. How do I say this without it because I, you know they're capitalizing on just raw emotions. You know what I used to live in I grew up in Philadelphia, he's take public transportation everywhere and you can have, you're gonna have weird and sometimes disturbing and even occasionally Scary Encounters with people who are in dire need of mental help. It's not okay to kill them. It's not yet they take advantage of that kind of mentality. And that that one isn't, you know, that thing that it's just insane. It's like, they're, they're all these people. And I'm saying and mostly on the right, but not all of them. Just just going, Oh, what are you supposed to do when two guys being crazy and violent in front of you? And
Dave Anthony 30:42
argument, not kill if that's your argument? If that's your argument, and you are going to walk around Texas, go into a target with an AR 15 I get to fucking shoot you now.
Josh Olson 30:55
Yeah, cuz you're scared of you. Yes, exactly. Right. If
Dave Anthony 30:59
that is your argument, we get to start killing you all the fucking time because I'm scared of you.
Josh Olson 31:05
Yep. Yeah, that's it. It is the same logic. And yeah, yeah, in very, very grim. Watch this segway it makes me want to live in a happier and simpler time. Dave. It makes me want to go back in time, perhaps to a time when things were simpler and nicer and kinder like the founding of this country. Where I can hang out with sort of scholarly men who are mostly fixated on decency and how to create a world that was good and kind of just for all I'm talking about the founding fathers. You're a fan of Mr. Hurd. And we are this week, we are going to be discussing Prager us handling of the founding fathers. They've done quite a lot of videos on them. We've got our good friend Jared Yates Sexton about to join us. He is author of the Midnight kingdom, a history of power paranoia and the coming crisis. He's co hosted the MacBreak podcast, you can follow him on Twitter at JY Sexton and I highly recommend it he's he's a wonderful and brilliant, erudite fellow. And we kind of had a terrifying time walking through Praeger US version of the founding fathers. So shall we get into it? Let's get into it
[MUSIC] 32:39
if you finally had enough of him beat College, left wing. Get yourself a real degree from Prager University.
Jared Yates Sexton 32:57
I gotta tell you, I mean, I think these are hilariously bad. But I had never come across the kid shows before.
Josh Olson 33:04
Oh, we had a whole the whole kids episode from Betsy as
Jared Yates Sexton 33:08
I told Josh. Those things they should be training videos for for spotting actual groomers. That is some disturbing. Well, like telling kids to put their hands in bowls and not to move them and making them smell things. Yep.
Dave Anthony 33:26
It's really fucking weird.
Jared Yates Sexton 33:29
Weird. Because I've seen I've seen their videos before, but I'd never seen their kid show and that was wild.
Josh Olson 33:39
Yeah, I mean, they did a whole thing. And I'm kind of going I want to do some more stuff on the Frederick Douglass one, you know, this whole thing where they have like, these kids go back in time. It's a cartoon, they meet Frederick Douglass. You know, and they talked to him and he's it's basically about how awful Black Lives Matter is and he's like, You got to work within the system and you got to be peaceful and you're like, This guy beat one of his owners have to death and rebellion and I feel like you guys are fine with the American Revolution. But when anybody is a slave starts talking about
Jared Yates Sexton 34:11
that video. The Thomas Jefferson video is something
Josh Olson 34:15
plus, let's just jump into it, shall we? We're doing. We're doing founding fathers. Our first one we're going to do what made George Washington great. Don't cherry cherry. What?
Dave Anthony 34:29
I can't answer that before we start. Yeah, please. Yeah, he was the he was the richest guy.
Jared Yates Sexton 34:35
He's the number one landowner and speculator. Here you go.
Josh Olson 34:38
The richest guy wanted to say that. So Jared are either you guys were you familiar with John Rhoda Hamel wrote him out mill. I know he's the presenter of this one. This is the only video he's done. We don't we try to dig into these people Jared the He's a former archivist at Mount Vernon and there's nothing but you really interesting, but his background. Some of the people I mean, we've had snake handler, presenters and so forth. But he seems can I?
Jared Yates Sexton 35:10
Mount Vernon? Like what? Are they? Were they still archiving? Are they still digging up?
Josh Olson 35:17
A good question because Washington has been dead for what? At least 60 years, right?
Jared Yates Sexton 35:23
I mean, did he hide or scan in the backyard? What are we talking about?
Dave Anthony 35:26
There's a bottomless pit of documents on the property. They just keep mining them digging them?
Josh Olson 35:33
That's a really good question. Because, yeah, you know, what is an ark? Former archivists, maybe they finished, maybe he's got to finish the job.
Jared Yates Sexton 35:42
So funny time to bow out and walked away.
Josh Olson 35:44
Yeah, he's like, wow, we're done. But, but let's, let's, let's get into his intro.
[MUSIC] 35:50
He was a man, great men trusted. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and so many others looked up to him, literally, he was one of the tallest men of his era at six feet three, at courage, integrity. And I want
Josh Olson 36:06
to say you may notice in one or two of these, they do the same thing. And there are a bunch of the others that I watch, too, that we're not covering. Again, a real historian and a podcaster. Who does history, does the height of these guys matter? For size?
Dave Anthony 36:23
Well, I think I mean, I think it does. I think that because everyone was so short, I think it
Jared Yates Sexton 36:30
does kind of matter. Well, the problem with George Washington is you're basically filibustering, that's the thing with this guy is there's like, you can say he was a great general, or whatever. And even that is up for debate. Like, there's nothing that he did outside of walk away from the presidency after two terms that anybody really has anything to say anything about. Everything that we discussed when it comes to George Washington is mythology that was completely made up, by the way in order to sell a bunch of books after the founders had died. There's nothing particularly geez, yes, actually, like, it's 100%. Like, I'm sorry, the guy who was tall, that's what you've got. For me. That's what made him great. And oh, the people who you'll notice they're even patting the time of it. Great men looked up to him, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, corn pop, alfalfa just reaches a point where you're like, are what made him great that he was tall?
Josh Olson 37:29
Well, they did look up to me, generally, I've only met one great man taller than me.
Dave Anthony 37:34
Everything I read about him is is he was popular because he's rich. You know, the way he died was idiotic, because he was a moron. The the, he was obsessed with trying to get a slave back. He, he wasn't a good general. I mean, I haven't extensively read about him. But the things I have read, especially the crossing of the Delaware, like his plan would have failed miserably. And due to happenstance, it worked. Absolutely nothing to do with him. So everything, everything I've read, it's been like, he just kind of stumbled into this stuff. But at the end of the day, he was the rich guy.
Jared Yates Sexton 38:18
He was the rich guy. And he was he was the richest man, the number one land speculator, which was why he was in the entire business, by the way. And by the way, the great great ancestor of all of our wealthy people. Now he had no idea how to actually make money, except that the system was explicitly set up for him to make money. Otherwise, he was a complete and utter failure. And the entire idea, and this is what happens in a lot of these videos, the Prager sets up and we'll I'm sure we'll talk about it. It's this idea that like, God chose George Washington to defeat the British Army. And that's why it happened. No, it was because of the British Army had to cross an ocean. And they didn't have a lot of resources and the Hapa that they were fighting an away game, right now.
Josh Olson 38:59
By the time they got there. They all had scurvy. Is that.
Jared Yates Sexton 39:03
Exactly. And even everybody who looks at this from like an actual economic and historical political position says, Yeah, this was destined to happen. You're going to lose your colonies, especially when you have something like the United States of America waiting to be birthed into existence. It's not because George Washington was tall, or because
Josh Olson 39:22
classic Bill Cosby been cursed would be his name about the British were read in March in a straight line and the Americans can fire behind trees and rocks. But I also want to ask, Dave, I shouldn't make fun of your get Dave What are the four people who listen to this you're gonna let dollop it's like I would argue what are the best History podcast in the universe? Didn't you do I feel like you did. Did you guys do one about George Washington's teeth?
Dave Anthony 39:54
Yes. It's that you know, that's fascinating. That was back when Teeth word things. You know, when soldiers died on the field, they went and grabbed all their teeth because they were going to put them in someone else's mouth. So there's no, there's no actual evidence that he used slaves teeth, but I absolutely would not put it out of the question either like it's a strong possibility that he he could have had slaves to teeth in his mouth. He certainly had all kinds of fucking teeth. You know, he tried whalebone. He tried would he tried the reason you always see him semi frowning and pictures is because his he's an incredible pain constantly. He has
Jared Yates Sexton 40:41
like the whole point with Washington. And none of these videos actually deal with anything that he did administratively. None of them deal with
Josh Olson 40:52
the mythology of of winning the revolution. The whole point
Jared Yates Sexton 40:57
was why this system got set up. And to go off what Dave was saying in terms of like slaves. Like, it's not like even Thomas Jefferson was able to say I'm a little weird about this every now and then even while he was profiting off all that George Washington was a prolific slave owner. And on top of that, as President, what did he do? He pushed for Haiti to continue to be a slave colony, which is one of the most shameful things that a president has ever done. And that was part of his entire legacy. Like, this is a really shameful character. And all they've got for you is the fact again, the dudes tall, good for him. Great.
Josh Olson 41:36
And isn't he's the first place I've ever actually really fought back and stop that shit is, yeah. Which, which is hilarious, because these guys always like to go on. Like, whenever you talk about slavery, like, well, white people didn't invent it, but white people ended it. We're the first to do either. I'll give you one. But
Jared Yates Sexton 41:54
Haiti beat France. And then they beat Napoleonic France. They also beat every major nation on the face of the earth, despite the fact that people like the United States were piling money into there left and right. And is one of the reasons why eventually we get the civil wars because of fear of a Haitian uprising. But I mean, George Washington left and right was just like, No, we need to stop this. This is an injustice. The black men could be free over here that
Dave Anthony 42:23
couldn't go think he couldn't beat as a Clintons.
Josh Olson 42:36
But he had that, or they talked about one of the others. He had some like Billy Joe, or something his sidekick, the slave that stayed with him everywhere who finally we freed.
Dave Anthony 42:47
So his George Washington slaves are an interesting thing. So a lot of people think like, Well, that was just the time everybody had slaves. George Washington when he went to Philadelphia to be part of the government. Yes. That state had a had a law, and that, and that because of the Quakers. And that law was if you move to this state, and you have slaves after six months, they are free. So what did George Washington do? First of all, the, the first thing he did was think that his slaves were so dumb, they wouldn't realize that was the law. So he's treating them like five year olds, number one. And then number two, he reset the clock. So they would take their slaves, just before six months, on a one day trip back to Mount Vernon or whatever, and then they bring it back and reset the clock, which is grotesque. It's just like, it's that idea that everybody had slaves. And that was the way it was no, this is a guy purposefully going around the system to to get out of a law. And then his wife's favorite slave escaped. By the way, he married into insane wealth. Also, his wife's favorite slave escaped and he spent years hunting her down. She made her way up to North to New Hampshire, and she was living her life. And he was trying to get her back. For years, he couldn't take it. So he wasn't a good dude. You know, if you compare him to the Quakers, he's a fucking monster when it comes to slavery. That's right.
Josh Olson 44:18
So let's let's keep going. This is just the introduction. I also love there's this way this guy is just as breathless, like you can tell how he feels about George Washington, how much he wishes he could be in a room with him someday,
[MUSIC] 44:27
wisdom, and you have a truly impressive figure. Let's start with his courage. That was never in doubt. If anything, he had too much of it. To the point of rashness, as a young man, he fought for the British against the French over control of the Ohio Valley, then the westernmost point of the American wilderness. Throughout that conflict, known as the French and Indian War, and the American Revolution, Washington was always in the thick of the action. His aides are often struggle to keep him from surging too far ahead of his own troops surgery in one battle, His coat was pierced four times by musket fire. Horses were shot out from under him. Amazingly, some would say Miraculously, he was never wounded. Not so much as a flesh wound. Okay,
Jared Yates Sexton 45:18
hold on pause. Yeah. You
Dave Anthony 45:20
said that? We that's not we don't know. That's true. He said that. That's it.
Jared Yates Sexton 45:26
All the proof. I want to point out that what's happening here, there's so much occurring just in the snippet. Why is it and we're gonna sit here and talk about how great of a military leader he is. But he actually got people killed because he was going out in front of them. And by the way, why is he doing it? It's not out of courage, it's land speculation. He wanted to get out and find more land so that he could profit off of it, which we'll talk about more in a second, I'm sure. But on top of that, this miraculous idea is the biggest horseshit of all this is what Prager is trying to get to at the heart of it, which is that God Himself has chosen the United States as being the champion of his will. And throughout this, it is the idea that this has divine intervention, all throughout it, which by the way, is why this shouldn't be taught in public schools, first of all, but second of all, this is how you get around slavery, white supremacy, oppression, patriarchy, all of it, is to go ahead and say that God is on our side. And as a result, you can't question what we're doing. And this is like, the main foundational brick of all of it.
Dave Anthony 46:40
But he had more courage.
Jared Yates Sexton 46:44
Nobody
Dave Anthony 46:45
should be allowed to ask.
Josh Olson 46:46
Don't be like, I guess this is the other thing. And I keep mentioning and I apologize to our listeners. But, you know, early on, I sent Dave one of these videos, I don't remember which one it was. And he's like, Oh, that's one of the kids ones. Because of course, your kids videos, like no, this is one of the ones for the adults. And stuff like this, when you seen him on how tall he was, and how brave he was. Forgive me, I'm not a historian. You gentlemen can clear this up for me if I'm wrong. But I feel like if I'm actually teaching history, I'm not standing in front of a class, say in a university. And going George Washington was tall. He was bwave. And I wish I could be his friend.
Jared Yates Sexton 47:26
This honestly, the audience for this? Are people who get misty eyed looking at Revolutionary War magazines and Barnes and Noble waiting on a table at PF Changs. I mean, it's people who get caught up in the image of America that has absolutely nothing to do to do with anything. Anything. Anything.
Josh Olson 47:50
Yeah. And why are you telling because you're because you're just trying to inculcate me into your propaganda. Why are you hitting this so hard? He was honest. He was told he was boys. By the way. Yeah, it's a child's view of history.
Dave Anthony 48:04
Right? It's a child's view of history. It's all it's all they're all like, like, a trigger words for a five year old. Yeah, it really well. I'm
Josh Olson 48:11
completely okay. I have no choice in being okay. We all are okay with. There's nobody on the planet who can say this, as far as I know. Yeah. The country I live in was was created by people who were at best complicated at worst monsters. Okay, sure. Not my fault. You know, I there's a lot I can do to sort of clean up the mess they leave, they left. But this whole thing of like idolizing them and turning them into these heroes is just so friggin bonkers.
Jared Yates Sexton 48:41
But that also determines whether or not we change anything, you know? Like that, that that that smooth brain that we're talking about here? Like if you either say everything is probably okay, we need to stop questioning what's going on. And meanwhile, it is built on. It's built on George Washington was tall and he could not tell a lie, which is just straight dumb shit, right? But that men make sure that women are unable to, you know, have bodily autonomy in certain states. It's what is now making children go to work in factories and slaughterhouses in that level of stupid
Josh Olson 49:16
and let's be real there are people listening to this who are completely aligned with us in the mission of dissecting and taking apart Prager you who are outraged by them who are listening to us talk right now going that's disgusting. I'm not gonna listen to anymore. That's a horrifying thing it says weird story about the Newburgh rebellion. One of the group of officers What if they flew to get their arms until they get paid? What was what was going on there? I'm gonna play the clip of his speech, but, you know, they they threaten to take over the government. How much of that is true? Is that the true story? Is that a good enough estimate? Well,
Jared Yates Sexton 49:51
here's the thing. We don't really have a lot of records of exactly what happens. So we have a bunch of tales. Right? So we have a bunch of stories about how this stuff took place. What we do You know that by the way, I know this a shocking Prager doesn't get into, which is immediately after the revolution, basically everybody looks up and they're like, Hey, wait a second, I think maybe this war was fought to help the wealthy elite, and everybody else is getting screwed with their pants on. And you pay me essentially Right, right. Not only like the soldiers and like the the officers, but everybody top to bottom. I mean, George Washington. I don't think a lot of people know this. George Washington literally got on a horse and led the army to quell a tax rebellion as President of the United States of America.
Josh Olson 50:35
Wake up. Again, not not to make history. I feel like there's a whole tax thing a few years earlier that might be just a little hypocritical on his part. I don't know I'm when I think tax rebellion, just wow, I didn't know that at all. That's amazing.
Jared Yates Sexton 50:54
And by the way, the people like they basically, you know, everybody's like, yeah, absolutely. Let's have a revolution. This is Oh, by the way, not everybody, only a third of the country support. Yeah. But then afterwards, everybody else is like, oh, yeah, let's go ahead and put up Liberty poles and say that we want representation with our taxation and George Washington got on his horse and went out to slaughter them, like that literally happened.
Josh Olson 51:17
Jesus Christ. Well, let's so these these gentlemen are demanding money, essentially. And George goes off to see them.
[MUSIC] 51:27
They had risked everything to create a Republican society. He told the officers to abandon the call is now when true victory was so close would mean all their sacrifices would have been in vain, however convincing the speech may have been, it was a simple gesture that carried the day. He concluded his remarks by reading to them a letter sent to him from a member of Congress. Suddenly he stopped. from his pocket. He pulled a pair of spectacles none of the officers had ever seen him wear them. Putting the glasses on Washington said, Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in the service of my country, and now find myself going blind. He finished reading the letter and left the hall without another word. The gesture sincerely offered with just the right touch of stagecraft pierced the hearts of his men, many were moved to tears, they immediately passed a resolution declaring their loyalty to civilian government. George Washington had saved the revolution once again, wait,
Josh Olson 52:35
before we even get I don't even know what that means. They what they heard him. I'm like, Hey, do the old man's weak Let's kill him. That would be what is happening what why are they responding this story the guy is trying to tell me
Dave Anthony 52:49
he's he showed a sign of vulnerability. He's saying that George Washington this incredible, a man that basically birthed courage, He showed that he is human. And they were like, oh my god, I thought you were a super being. That this to the level of stupidity to think in this time in which people's noses fall off from syphilis, and they fucking died at 40 that someone putting on eye glasses would be like, Wow, this guy's really, it's so dumb. Their bodies were constantly falling apart.
Jared Yates Sexton 53:28
And by the way, I had a moment there where like, I disassociated imagine myself being in fifth grade at Mount Vernon, wanting to sneak off to the bus and like eat my sandwich. You know what I mean? It's incredible. I love that this guy this is what he's doing with history the whole time. Like it literally is telling you a story which by the way, we'll get to John Adams in a bit. But the idea is that he was the right man at the right place at the right time. And if he hadn't been there, and if his instincts that vulnerability, that speech hadn't been said, then literally we would be you know, taking tea right now. And and you know, basically
Josh Olson 54:10
you guys are rising up in rebellion I'm sent to stop you. And the way I stop you is to show you that I am vulnerable and in firm that just seems like that's exactly this is not the time to roll over and show your enemy your belly. This is the time to come down and show him you can kick their ass with your eyes closed. Oh
Jared Yates Sexton 54:26
my gosh, what is also
Dave Anthony 54:28
this is also a guy who died because he went out in the rain, and then came home and thought it would be rude to change and sat in his wet clothes throughout dinner.
Jared Yates Sexton 54:44
That's right. And by the way, and guide, everybody who talks about his presidency, they all are just like He's very tall. He left when he was supposed to leave, like none of the stuff that is at all involved like this thing. It's supposed to, it's supposed to hit you in the heart is like the West Wing crescendo hits. That's what it is. Yeah. But it doesn't, it doesn't. It's supposed to feel like he said the right thing. And it appealed to their sense of duty, and then it carried things out. And like that completely obfuscates how things work. You know, like, did they stick around? Because they figured out that was probably the best way to get their money and to maintain power. Otherwise, there would have been a coup, and that would have been that. That's that.
Josh Olson 55:30
Just yeah, I don't I don't get that one. Like, I know if I were working on a script, and I wrote that scene. They'd be like, what? Yeah, he puts on the glasses, and talks about our weekends and they all go shit. We better not. And now I'm like, I'm wondering why I got fired off that script.
Jared Yates Sexton 55:48
But are you picturing him about two heads taller than everybody in the room? Yeah. Oh,
Josh Olson 55:52
no, I forgot.
Dave Anthony 55:54
Can he in the script is he don't actors are all short. It's also dumb. This is so spectacularly. This is so much dumber than he chopped down the cherry tree. And wouldn't lie. This is so much dumber than anything I've ever heard about George Washington.
Josh Olson 56:13
patina. That story has a kind of Aesop's Fables kind of simplicity and nice. It's like, I don't care if it's true or not. There's a certain hold on your five. It's like, oh, yeah, if you're gonna be, you know, the good man who can do whatever you should aspire to be honest.
Jared Yates Sexton 56:27
Can I tell you, by the way, I had to do research on this when I was writing my book, American rule, because I'm wondering, yeah, I want to know where all these stories came from, literally was written to sell books after the founding generation had died, because somebody was like, hey, something like a Paul Bunyan but for George Washington. And to be clear, that's how dumb our understanding of history is in this country. times we
Josh Olson 56:56
were the friend of the slave he befriended who followed him everywhere comes from is he supposed to be like being babe the Blue Ox he's like, that sounds
Jared Yates Sexton 57:03
like something my racist like great aunt told everybody at Christmas time. Really a weird Hey,
Josh Olson 57:11
good day kept whatever more than when they go and everywhere and he freedom after he died when the old man was 90.
Dave Anthony 57:18
I mean, think about that, though. So so this is a guy who didn't allow his slaves to be freed in the state of Pennsylvania and would take them to reset the clock. Why would a slave be beholden to that guy?
Josh Olson 57:36
Right from bad? Fear Dave?
Dave Anthony 57:40
King, like what George Washington and his wife were part of the the the people who believed that slaves were better off as slaves than free people. Well, let's
Josh Olson 57:54
actually want to do a little segue into the next one because I found some or our next our next video also about Washington is called George Washington in general without an army. Our instructor this time is gentleman named Edward Lingle. And this is his only video. Are you familiar with him Jared? No, I
Jared Yates Sexton 58:10
refuse to believe any of these people are real Well
Josh Olson 58:15
Brian, Brian has a great theory which I'm gonna I'm going to share with you guys later in this is
Jared Yates Sexton 58:19
I can't get on board with these people being
Josh Olson 58:22
this is this is only video and Praeger you. He wrote a book called The Come on. First entrepreneur how George Washington built his and the nation's prosperity. It's mainly about Washington skill, as I made a business, about his financial speculation and experimentation with farming crops and methods and stuff like that. But this is from an interview. And keep in mind this is a biographer who I suspect when he listened to a talk is second maybe only to the guy we just heard and it's just affection for the for George. He says, it seems clear to me that Washington increasingly turned against slavery as he came to understand its basic conflict weight with the work benefit principle. Figures of his time, he fundamentally regarded industry in morality as two sides of the same coin. And industrious person was a moral person and vice versa. The more you want slavery and operation on his own estate, and the more he witnessed the various ways in which enslaved people were indifferent to or resisted work because they had no vested interest in success. The more Washington Ricard regarded the institution as inherently corrupt. Unfortunately, it still took him many years to break away from it altogether by freeing his slaves by the term of his will. So he this is a guy who is on Prager University talking about what a great man George Washington was. Even he's dealing with the fact that and not acknowledge it, that Washington oppose slavery, not because it was barbaric and inhuman, but be Because the slaves were not invested in their work,
Dave Anthony 1:00:04
right, they he basically believed and this was a fairly common belief at the time, that if you freed the slaves, they would just lay down and die.
Josh Olson 1:00:17
I mean, they even less incentivized to work because they were so lazy,
Dave Anthony 1:00:20
they wouldn't know what to do, they would be incapable of surviving on their own, which was these people who are fucking doing BRAC, back all of the work, the people doing all of the work, if they were free, then they would be like, Okay, I'm gonna sit down now just die in the mud. It's so dumb.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:00:37
Well, and, and the ideology, the narrative there. And you're exactly right. The idea was that these were just pitiful creatures. And that, you know, oh, I mean, I, if I have to take care of them, I will, there's a paternalism that's in that and that was part of all of it. Which by the way, is a hell of a thing to do. While you are doing no labor, you are making all of the money that is coming from it. But I guess whatever gets you to sleep at night, George, and for this guy. Like, I still don't know about you guys. I still have things that I said when I was like, in third grade that I'll stay. Oh, my God, I can't believe I said that.
Dave Anthony 1:01:12
This guy crazy. When I was like, 25,
Jared Yates Sexton 1:01:15
I know. I said, an interview that like, can you imagine trying to square the circle and being like, this is an okay thing to say. Like, that is
Josh Olson 1:01:26
why your old will probably goes off a lot on I mean, they all do on on. You know, it's funny, because there's this concept. And you get into this weird gray area, you know, it's presentism, where it's like it's wrong to judge people by today's standards. And it's like, well, but there's I don't know what the gray area is what you know where the line is, you know what I mean? And it's like, we put out a video the other day of prayer, saying, you know, there were some good slaveholders, you know, finally can't go with you there. I don't care what the culture you're living in tells you. You own other human beings and you're destroying them. You're not a good person. You're nice to your white friends.
Dave Anthony 1:02:07
Yeah. So yeah, there were there were always people saying don't own other people. They were always people saying that.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:02:14
Yeah, that it's not like there were abolitionists back then. But also, I think this is always amazing that they want us to believe two things in our minds. One, the founding generation, looked at the world as it worked the world order system and thought, No, we can change that. And we can make it more fair and full of liberty for ourselves. But they literally like whipped people and murdered people and raped people and never once thought, perhaps there might be a better way. And if you've like the Constitutional Convention, which wasn't even a constitutional convention, for that matter, and we'll get into that, like, they literally sat there and they're like, Yeah, we might do away with this thing. But I think that's going to hold us back from making money. Like they, it's, again, it's actually both insulting and embarrassing at the exact same time to sit around with that. Yeah.
Josh Olson 1:03:06
And it's like, it's fair to judge. I don't know, you know, I've got a great great, great grandmother, I'm sure who believe that Jews had horn she never met any. She never did anything about it. Like yeah, okay, it's just, you can judge her absent that, like if it were 2023 she probably wouldn't believe the twos and hordes anymore. But you know, you're owning slaves. It's, it's fair to judge you by Visa. She's Yeah. Alright. So let's let's, let's get into this guy, George Washington, a general without an army.
[VIDEO] 1:03:40
The following year, 1754, Washington was appointed lieutenant colonel of the Virginia regiment, and was once again sent to the frontier to engage the French. When Washington near what is now Pittsburgh, became convinced that the French were preparing to ambush him, he decided to make a preemptive attack. In the ensuing battle of French officer Ensign Jumonville, and nine of his men were killed. The French didn't take it well. They sent a force to track Washington down. Washington decided to make his stand at a small hastily built enclosure. He dubbed Fort Necessity, it should have been his last stand. In a driving rain the French surrounded the fort and open fire 100 of Washington's men were either killed or wounded before he finally surrendered. The terms of surrender were written of course in French, which Washington didn't understand. To his great dismay. He later learned that in signing the document, ordering the assassination of Jumonville. The French later use this admission to justify their claim that it was the British who started what became known as the Seven Years War in Europe, or the French and Indian War in the colonies. In the words of English writer and politician sir Horace Walpole As the volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America, set the world on fire. This was the first time Washington's name was heard in the courts of Europe. It would not of course, be the last.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:05:15
That's a great one. i There's so much to unpack in this horseshit. First of all, he was out there trying to speculate land in order to line his pockets. Second of all, he made a terrible decision as a military leader that got everybody either shot or their legs sawed off at a battleground. And eventually, he has to sign something that he doesn't know how to read, which implicates him and basically ruins everything. By the way, this
Josh Olson 1:05:41
Hold on. Is that true?
Jared Yates Sexton 1:05:44
So, yes, it is my biggest
Josh Olson 1:05:47
it's like, I always read your contracts. And I'm like, Sure, I'm gonna sign something in which I have, like committed some federal crime, like calling for the assassination of somebody I shouldn't be calling for.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:05:58
I want to point out what are this? This is not the first place where it's been argued that George Washington set off the Seven Years War, which eventually leads to the American revolution, a revolution and a bunch of stuff. Are you kidding me? This is what sets off basically, one of the first World Wars is Georgia.
Dave Anthony 1:06:18
Oh, hold on. Hold on. There were there were no others. There were no problems between England and France,
Jared Yates Sexton 1:06:25
right? They weren't. It's literally it's like sagging that, like I it's like taking the most American centric view of everything. Yeah. And just putting it into motion. It's It's so stupid. It's the dumbest thing I've heard since the last time.
Dave Anthony 1:06:50
Yeah, it's a level of American exceptionalism. That's so crazy, because the the idea that like, a war, a World War essentially starts because an American signed a piece of paper he couldn't read is so fucking crazy. I don't know what to say about it, like, making this video, I would be like, Hey, we should. I feel like we should not do this part. It's like we're
Josh Olson 1:07:21
not commonly taught certainly not in school, because, yeah, it's like, we don't really spew this story much anymore. Do we outside of crazy places like this.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:07:31
This is one of those things that has started. You know, we have to we have to make content. You know, we got to put out articles, we got to put out podcasts, we're still trying to find shit. And like, this is something that like, people argue every now and then because they have no understanding of any of the conditions. England and France we're going to go to war whether or not you know, George Washington went into business for himself, like John McClane rushing into a room you know, like this. This has nothing to do with anything. It is I'm embarrassed for the guy. Like I don't know the point of this video. I don't know what you're trying to tell me the even the content doesn't make sense.
Dave Anthony 1:08:13
And, Josh, to your point, they're not teaching this anymore. No. Yes. is exactly the kind of shit they're bringing back. Jesus Christ. Welcome to fascism, man. That's what it looks like.
Josh Olson 1:08:34
Yeah, because they did none of these. They talked about how great Washington was. You did two terms as US President. And they never talked about
Dave Anthony 1:08:44
was also our sixth president. I believe six. There were five guys who were unofficial presidents before before it became an actual country. They were they were guys before him. There's a lot of shit we don't talk about, like,
Josh Olson 1:08:58
Well, why don't you want to talk about how great Washington is? How can we never talk about what kind of President he was? Because he was military stuff more fun. It's more easy to turn into a superhero comic book.
Dave Anthony 1:09:08
It'll talk about what what any president was actually the fucking Reagan and Obama and Clinton like they don't talk about any no one gets fucking George Bush.
Josh Olson 1:09:21
No, he talks about things they did even if you whitewash it. They talk about things they did they do they you know, Reagan was the great communicator who I don't know what the fuck they say. We would buy. It is discussed.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:09:33
The problem with Washington is if you start drilling down on the surface, first of all, you see that like he was nothing except for a mythical hero. But you also have to start arguing with something that they leave behind when it gets to John Adams, which is they literally did not want multiple parties. They wanted one party of white wealthy men to make all the decisions and never compete against each other. And so it's not like people You know, I was asked the question in like elementary school who George Washington beat for the presidency. And it's like, oh, moving along, moving along. We got talking about other things. It's like, oh, what were what were the numbers there? You know, it was because if you get into the debates, yeah, it gets, it gets really upsetting when you start to realize that these people literally want to create like a totalitarian state of the white and wealthy men. That's what they that's what they designed period. Yeah,
Josh Olson 1:10:30
yeah. Well, you guys ready to move on from George Washington getting
Dave Anthony 1:10:35
ready to move on? Since before this podcast started? I gotta be honest.
Josh Olson 1:10:40
So our next our next one is John Adams, American founder and second president by the way, Paul Giamatti show hit miss I enjoyed it very much.
Dave Anthony 1:10:51
i i You know, I I watched it before I really read much about so I don't recall how true it was. I know he was a curmudgeon a fucking asshole who, like he was a terrible man. He was talking about despotic Gasol, like
Jared Yates Sexton 1:11:12
I will say what I enjoyed about that miniseries, number one terrible prosthetic makeup off. Yeah, I remember that all Giamatti was fantastic. But the thing that made it for me, man, the red hot tension between John and Abigail, they were ready to that entires here. Let it be No. I love that. I love it.
Josh Olson 1:11:37
Who who played who played her? I don't even
Jared Yates Sexton 1:11:41
know Laura Linney? Yeah, Lenny. Yep, that's right. Well, sure.
Josh Olson 1:11:45
So let's This is another one of these guys. Just gonna ask, see Bradley Thompson, making your circles shared.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:11:53
I mean, we hang out every now and then. But we don't agree on everything. Most of these
Josh Olson 1:11:56
other videos are about the evils of Marxism as there are a lot of his writings which and it mostly boils down boils down to Marxist are losers who envy winners. Fair enough. He blamed school shootings on progressive education and nihilism.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:12:19
Jesus, what's the problem? I don't I don't.
Josh Olson 1:12:23
I know and I, on the one hand, he's right. On the other hand, I gotta say, if I hadn't taken nihilism in high school, I would not be the man I am today. But Brian siano, our research guy pointed something out really interesting. Because we've done several of these now and a lot of topics things. You point to the one downside, because a lot of his look, we have experts come on. So don't ask me, you know, or like, don't don't really worry too much on the videos just like, Who are these people, anything interesting about them, and sometimes very interesting things about them. But say one downside to Frager. Using these basically 50, or academics, for us is it takes a ton of work to find out anything interesting about them, because they're just not distinctive enough to get noticed outside of the little worlds they inhabit. You know, he said I had to scroll through five pages of Google results to get past ads and mentions and laudatory interviews before finding anything critical. And it's some Catholic website, complaining that see Bradley Thompson, that his account of the Constitution is fanfic about John Locke. Interesting. But, you know, that could be a built in thing. It's like they they they point it out with some big names here and there. And we'll get to at least one later. But then it's a lot of these, like, Who the fuck is this guy? Yeah. And they dress well.
Dave Anthony 1:13:41
So stop present. Well, stop using Google. It's a catastrophe. It's a terrible search engine now.
Josh Olson 1:13:49
Brian, if you're listening, but let's get into John Adams, American founder and president despot. Everybody knows what happened on July 4 1776. America was born. But three days earlier on July 1, Independence hung in the balance. There was a great case to be made not to secede from Great Britain. The colonists had no army, no navy, and almost no money. England had a lot of all three, it would have made perfect sense to bend to the will of the crown, pay some extra taxes and call it a day. There were plenty of people in Philadelphia prepared to make that case. They could have easily prevailed, yet they didn't. They didn't because of the words of one man, John Adams. at a key moment in the congressional debate, when the forces against independence appeared to have the upper hand. Adams rose to his feet without notes, and without any preparation. He made the case for independence. By the time he sat down. The case had been one.
Speaker 9 1:15:02
We don't have a transcript of what he said, Hold on,
Speaker 3 1:15:05
hold on. We did. Holmes might rank even higher than he does now among the founding fathers.
Dave Anthony 1:15:12
Can I Can I just say something about the time, they would fucking go up there and speak all the time for hours. They didn't use notes, they would just sit there and fucking hours long. Like, this is what that guy just said is that normal shit happened? Like, that's what occurred, like guys would go on forever.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:15:31
Well, and two things. One, I just love the balls it takes to say, no one knows what he said except for it was great. That's
Josh Olson 1:15:41
just give him some spectacles to put on that well, like and then he put on his glasses. And they all went Oh, shit. And but here's
Jared Yates Sexton 1:15:47
the funny thing it happened in actually. So this is a fun little anecdote I was really excited to tell you all about. So this speech by Adams before July 4 1776. Over the years, it's not enough that the Founding Father gave this speech that nobody remembers. No one knows what it was about. The far right and the evangelical right. And even Ronald Reagan started telling a story. And this is great, by the way that it hung in the balance. No, we weren't sure if we're going to declare independence. And then a man stood up and gave a speech that just touched everybody and made sure that America would eventually declare independence. And then they turned around and he was gone. And why? Because it was an angel sent from fucking heaven by God, to convince the founder to go forward with independence. It is the dumbest stuff, but it has it has been told over and over again. Ronald Reagan, basically used in every speech that he gave for a years to point out the idea that God intended for the revolution to happen, but here it is, it's John Adams, and he would be a better president, if we all knew what he said. It's true story.
Josh Olson 1:17:03
An angel, so there's no historical accounts to indicate what the fuck he said, that
Jared Yates Sexton 1:17:09
sounds great. You could imagine what he said. I mean, let you put whatever it's a MacGuffin, whatever you want a John Adams to say to make you feel good. Get it in your heart at Twitter, you can make it up period or an angel.
Josh Olson 1:17:24
He does get into a little bit of like how he was to work with brilliant, demanding meticulous, but often irascible, he was not an easy man to love. At some point in his life, he irritated if not alienated everyone with whom he worked. Yet the same people would invariably come to appreciate him that included Washington and especially Jefferson, with whom he sometimes fought bitterly. Ironically, for all his cantankerous pneus his marriage to Abigail Adams stands as one of the great love stories of American history by our own walk a mile walk. Yeah, so
Dave Anthony 1:18:03
the fuck? Well, it's important to know that this president the second president was super into bang. And
Jared Yates Sexton 1:18:13
also, I love the little thing they did there. You know, he tangled with Jefferson, but they loved each other. The man literally tried to get rid of every freedom in the United States of America. Yeah, in order to go after his enemies. Also, by the way, this is a fun fact that always gets hidden, basically accused Thomas Jefferson and this upstart party, it was the first time that we had different parties. He tried to thwart it by claiming that he was a an Illuminati conspirator trying to destroy the country and made it illegal for people to question and criticize him. People were literally thrown in jail for criticizing John Adams.
Josh Olson 1:18:53
John fair, who among us here would not pass such a law if we could.
Dave Anthony 1:18:58
Okay. I mean, that's just you're essentially talking about my Twitter.
Josh Olson 1:19:03
Exactly, right. Exactly. By the way, Dave, I have a list of 47 people who this week's list of people begging for you to unblock them. They're saying something nice to you when you blocked them down. I can't tell you how many views I get. I'm sure Gareth gets even more. I was actually saying Way to go man. I just blocked me. Good luck. You're not missing anything. He's cantankerous,
Jared Yates Sexton 1:19:32
irascible. Yes.
Josh Olson 1:19:37
desperate. So yeah, so kind of like we're but nobody teaches it. I mean, that's the I mean, we're talking either is the thing that certainly not in high
Dave Anthony 1:19:49
school. There's a couple of presidents a Jackson, Adams that are horrendous pieces of shit. Yes, a call And the fact that you're using this guy, and I think it's just because he was second, like talking about in this way is insane, insane.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:20:09
And by the way, this is how people will say Donald Trump's unprecedented. Like, no, it's not like not at all what John Adams did in the lead up to the election of 1800. Like if you want to understand Donald Trump, like you look back and you look at this, he was a petty little tyrant and did not want to get defeated. And I want to point out this was the first time that we had parties. You know, this is how they reacted it was an immediate now we're gonna get rid of civil liberties, John Yeah, it.
Josh Olson 1:20:43
I remember. It's funny to say that yeah, so Donald Trump was a lot like the founding fathers. Yes. On ironically not being funny. And I remember back remember when a bunch of contras back during the Reagan years? She did they just you know, they raped and murdered a busload of nuns, I believe, is that correct? And Reagan, and we compare them to the founding fathers. Yes. A lot of people are outraged. And I remember sitting there kind of gone. No. Give me on that one.
Dave Anthony 1:21:14
The Founding Fathers would have killed the Catholic have they saw one so yeah.
Josh Olson 1:21:19
Yeah. Well, let's let's do Thomas Jefferson. Now I got Carol Swain. We've talked about her on previous one. She she's kind of just kind of a creep.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:21:30
Can I say real fast
Josh Olson 1:21:32
about her? Oh, you do? Okay. Yes.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:21:36
I so when we agreed to do this, Josh had said to me, you know, go and look at these videos. See what's happening here. When I opened up the Thomas Jefferson one, and I saw that it was being performed by an African American woman. Josh, Dave, people listening the show. I literally
Dave Anthony 1:22:00
have, yeah, but that is that is so Prager, you because they really, to do this. They really have to find do an African to do what they want to do. Right? They got to cast this role.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:22:15
And I just, I just sat there and listen, I did my research on it because I'd watch it three or four times because the whole time I was just saying Sally Hemings Sally. Oh,
Dave Anthony 1:22:29
have you seen the they recently excavated the property and and the room that she lived in? Have you? Oh, no. I mean, have you seen Have you seen the movie The room? It is a windowless, tiny little box.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:22:47
Oh, I couldn't believe it. I just wanted to say I was so shocked when I opened this. But that's the thing is like I shouldn't be because you're exactly right. This is how they operate. That's who these people are. That's how big but this is this was wild.
Dave Anthony 1:23:04
Imagine candidate Candace Owens turning you down for this. That's bad.
Josh Olson 1:23:11
She did run for mayor of Nashville. She's had a lot of major religious shifts. We covered this before and and either one and she's also and we'll get to this gentleman in a bit. She even appeared in one of Dinesh D'Souza his movies the Hillary's America one, and served as vice president of the Trump administration's 1776 report. Getting that history right. Here we go.
[VIDEO] 1:23:36
There's a reason why Thomas Jefferson spaces on our coinage, why his sculpted head is on Mount Rushmore, and where there is a magnificent memorial in his honor in Washington DC. As British historian Paul Johnson put it in a history of the American people. No one did more than Jefferson to create the United States of America.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:24:01
I gotta say real fast. This is such an amazing thing that the Wright does constantly. Like the Jefferson thing, what makes him great as he's on Mount Rushmore, and he's on Mount Rushmore because he's great. I mean, circular logic is incredible with these people, like you created icons of him, and as a result, that's why we should think he's awesome. That is such a telling telling start to this thing.
Josh Olson 1:24:29
Yeah. Well, there's all sorts of weird because it does. You're right. It doesn't make any sense. It's unreal argument. But there this is, according to a university in which they've had a guy a couple of times argue. If police were racist, why would they go work in black neighborhoods? Yeah. Which I don't even but you know, the thing about all this stuff is Oh, you don't even know how to begin to address this stupid idea that it's like even asking the question, even hearing the quote still makes you dumber. But speaking of intelligent let's talk about Thomas education.
[VIDEO] 1:25:10
Born on April 13 1743, and shared with Virginia, Jefferson early on displayed an intellectual curiosity that would never be Quinn's, he divided books on history, science, math and philosophy. While learning Latin, Greek and French, he would eventually amass a personal library of 6500 volumes, declaring, I cannot live without books, there was virtually no subject, which he didn't find fascinating, and didn't try to master. Most of the time he succeeded.
Dave Anthony 1:25:44
So he liked books. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of these people, but there are, there are people like books. And
Jared Yates Sexton 1:25:54
I gotta tell you, people who haven't seen this video, it's got this cartoon of Thomas Jefferson reading books. I kept looking around my computer to see if the slaves were in the background.
Josh Olson 1:26:08
Slave slaving away while he was he was sitting there reading who here is
Jared Yates Sexton 1:26:12
one of the great myths of this era, the enlightenment. And let's be very clear, is the Enlightenment a period in which like a bunch of scholars like Thomas Jefferson are thinking about things coming up with things, inventing things? Absolutely. Why did they have the wealth that they had? Why did they have the time that they had it because there was a group of generational slaves that were doing the work for them, and giving them the wealth net, do make it possible for them to do that work? It is insane to think that these people were touched with genius. And as a result, they were able to do that period.
Dave Anthony 1:26:50
So what you're saying is, it's easier to read, you have more time to read when you have slaves.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:26:58
It's incredible how it works. It's all like, it's almost like the worldwide colonization and slave trade, created a class of white men who were able to spend their time thinking about things and why did they come going back to what we talked about, they came to the decision, I should be more free. Like literally, they literally sit around, they're like, I think I deserve more power as they are reading and learning from the past. That's what that's what happened with the enlightenment.
Josh Olson 1:27:30
And the argument for sort of maintaining the canon of literature and art that we teach, and I heard this decades ago, before we were even really talking about it in the same way. But I'm a freshman, my resident, you know, pointing out that everybody we're reading right now is some a white guy, which is fine. I mean, not holy shit, like Mark Twain. I'm like, I could drop everything and go read 10 Mark Twain books right now and be happy. But I remember him, you know, but you know, he's like, Okay, show me the great black literature from the 18th to 19th century and you're like, there's a reason I can't it's, it's insane. There's just no acknowledgement of yeah, as you say, what, what allowed men like Jefferson to do this, and what prevented African Americans from doing the same. It's just this and it all goes towards a larger argument of like, well, we are, you know, we are the better race because we've created all this stuff, when the
Jared Yates Sexton 1:28:27
argument is a lie, that we're living in the best of all worlds, that the smartest and the brightest, and the most talented rose to the top and they created what happened. Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead and throw out there that among that slave class, there are probably some people in it, who could have contributed to make society better. added to these conversations, you'd find maybe
Josh Olson 1:28:49
picking cotton and getting beaten and raped, trying to crank out great works of literature when
Jared Yates Sexton 1:28:55
but the mythology of the merit meritocracy in western civilization has been the result of the best and the brightest, it's absolute horseshit. It's all based a same thing. Now. It's like, Well, are there people who are smarter than Elon Musk? Yes, yes, there.
Josh Olson 1:29:09
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think I think anybody who spent time on Twitter now for
Dave Anthony 1:29:14
I mean, anybody who needed a new
Josh Olson 1:29:17
thing to indicate that some people what did they just gave that thing to Barack Obama and somebody else, they get rid of the the blue check, and now he's come up with a new thing. To let you know that people like Barack Obama, Barack Obama, because we need to be able to differentiate on Twitter, like
Dave Anthony 1:29:41
anybody who could have lived through the past 10 years and still think that most billionaires aren't fucking idiots and just evil lucky guys who have no souls and aren't largely stupid. I mean, they're, they're completely detached from reality and in their fucking and crazy. And, you know, if you're if you're wealthy, it's a lot easier to keep being wealthy to turn Yeah, isn't hard.
Josh Olson 1:30:09
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, let's get into the Declaration of Independence here.
[VIDEO] 1:30:15
Although Jefferson was not a gifted speaker, he was a genius with words. This gift stopped John Adams. And
Dave Anthony 1:30:25
What in the fuck does that mean? What in the fuck does that mean? What is she saying?
Jared Yates Sexton 1:30:36
He was Paul Dave. He was talking.
Josh Olson 1:30:45
I mean, what did you have?
Dave Anthony 1:30:48
They, they have this way of turning a phrase and saying a thing. That means absolutely nothing and making it sound like it means something. Yeah. That's what Prager you is. It's really, it's really crazy.
Josh Olson 1:31:11
Yeah. Want to talk about the declaration? Or is that?
Jared Yates Sexton 1:31:16
Well, I just wanted to point out with the Declaration of Independence, I love that there. They always talk about this as if it's some sort of like document handed down from on high, like God handed it to Moses and gave it to us. Like, nobody ever talks about the fact that the first draft of the thing basically pointed out that slavery was a problem and needed to be addressed. And the Congress was like, we're gonna need a revision of that. If you could give us another draft. Tomorrow, yeah. Hey, Tom, I know you're feeling bad about yourself. But can we move forward here lay in, by the way? Nobody, hardly you
Dave Anthony 1:31:52
want to get rid of all my money. I don't want to do that.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:31:56
Also, no mention in the Declaration of Rights of Man that helped set off the French Revolution, because that is persona non grata to these people. They also can't talk about the fact that Thomas Jefferson looked at the Constitution was like, What the fuck is this? What what are we doing? I was in France, and you did this? They don't want to sit with any of that, because any contradiction whatsoever, the house goes down, done. Yeah, that's it, he reduced
[VIDEO] 1:32:21
the scope and reach of the federal government about cutting taxes when spending,
Jared Yates Sexton 1:32:27
he reduced the size and scope of the federal government by making the country four times larger, basically, based on personal decree, and also made a decision that all Americans should be yelman farmers, and created one of the biggest sociological human experiment in human history. That's how he was involved in small government. Incredible, incredible bad, not great,
[VIDEO] 1:32:53
and we return half of the national debt. This was the small government Jefferson in action. But he had no problem exercising vigorous executive authority, when he felt it was necessary. No worse, this better express than his greatest accomplishment as president, the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, or just four cents an acre. In one fell swoop. Jefferson orchestrated a deal that doubled the size of the United States, Incorporated and territories of what are now 15 States while also eliminating the presence of a powerful European empire from North America.
Dave Anthony 1:33:39
It's just such the the simplicity of like, so he just signed to thing and he got it like, What are you talking about? The politics going on or like,
Josh Olson 1:33:51
and once he bumped into a guy and talked him down to 15 million.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:33:56
There's no mention guys, guess what? I
Josh Olson 1:33:57
read his guidelines. And I guess what I did Holy shit, you better sit down.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:34:02
There's no mention that Napoleon needed the money and didn't run in anymore. And by the way, it's weird how we're not talking about the fact that there are tribes of indigenous people throughout this map, that Thomas Jefferson and the people involved with him are pushing away, not just because they want them out of the way but because there's money to be made with the land and land speculation, which is the basis of the Democratic Republican Party, the Democratic Party, it goes on to Andrew Jackson, you name it, but no dealing with any of this whatsoever at all.
[VIDEO] 1:34:38
Thomas Jefferson was a complex man who must be judged in the context of his time Jesus
Josh Olson 1:34:44
Christ all I just I pray. I don't know. I just pray that nobody ever speaks to me in those terms ever was being judged at the turn. was Oh, shit, Adolf Hitler complex. They're talking about you that way you're, you're in trouble.
[VIDEO] 1:35:09
This is, of course best understood in his relationship to slavery. He grew up in a world that took slave ownership for granted. He owns slaves as his father had before him. Yet he aport, the very idea of slavery. On numerous occasions, he acknowledged that he violated his fundamental belief that all men are created equal. And yet it's also true that Jefferson pointed the way out of that heinous institution. For this, we are forever in his debt.
Josh Olson 1:35:41
So how did he do that?
Jared Yates Sexton 1:35:43
So Thomas Jefferson, at one point, basically said, I think at some point or another, if we don't get rid of slavery, they're going to rise up and kill us. Like that was literally what he said about slavery. He was like, We need to stop this because eventually there's going to be some type of a revolution that's going to kill slave owners. That's, that's what he did. And the Declaration of Independence didn't free anybody. Like did it sound good in some speeches? You know, in civil rights? Yes, absolutely. It did. But it never actually meant to do any of that, that that's an absurdity.
Josh Olson 1:36:16
But that is, by the way, how politics has always and will always work. And it's one of my problems with teaching this cartoonish version, this mythical version. So they don't have problems with Jefferson, but no problems with him being a bad person who did good things, because he was pushed into doing them. Because we what you people need to understand is that his politics, and he did not spend time sitting around going someone does a good person or a bad person. Who cares. It's what can we push them into doing? What can we make them do? What are the you know, and this breeds a kind of passivity and people? Well, they're good people. I don't have to do anything. No, man, you got to push them to do the shit you need to do. It's just beyond cards. I want to say cartoonish because I have nothing but reverence and respect for cartoons. It's, I was a child that should I have reverence and respect for children. You know, my kids 10 months old, he already knows that I'm not going to do everything for him, because I'm good. I'm going to do it because he won't shut the fuck up.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:37:19
Isn't it more interesting and more meaningful if like, we look at these people and realize they did some awful things? Like because what it does is it deters us into making the world better. Right? Like, I can sit here and I can tell you that like, again, the Declaration on the Rights of Man, I think it's a really important document. The Declaration of Independence rhetorically is an important document. But that also makes it more meaningful that it was written by a horrific slave owner, who was a hypocrite means we can make it better as opposed to Hey, shut up. Everything's,
Josh Olson 1:37:55
by the way, it's a version of like a violent you know, it's like Sorry, Chinatown's a great fucking movie. I can accommodate the fact that Roman Polanski isn't it's still a joy to film. I'm not even joking. It's like it is the same mentality that's like, god dammit, you kind of grow out of this stupid shit.
Dave Anthony 1:38:11
You know, you know it. My favorite thing about Jefferson that I didn't know was that he completely lied and started a witch hunt after Aaron Burr for you know, treason activity out I believe in the Louisiana Purchase area. But just just totally fabricated and started just essentially a witch hunt against burr based on absolutely nothing. It's just fascinating to read that kind of stuff.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:38:41
I want to point out by the way, and this is one of the things that I always love whenever you're talking about like the Founding Fathers, man they were messy. Like they really just like we're getting in like basically stuff that would make people on forum flame wars embarrassed. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr it's incredible. It really is Hamilton I mean the feuds and pettiness and meanwhile, you want to talk about God sent them to do this. No, these were some messy assholes, man.
Dave Anthony 1:39:14
Yeah, they really were especially Hamilton Hamilton was really messy. Nobody liked
Josh Olson 1:39:20
but you know, they were they were the elite. Yeah, why would that? Yeah. Before we get to next one he's gonna point out Jared did and we're not going to really go into it because we covered it in our last episode with with a different episode but he stumbled across I love when people discover Prager kids videos for the first time and he found the guests are mess on Thomas Jefferson. Where if you kids if they guess wrong about Thomas Jefferson get horrible things poured on them. I will say that the stuff they're dumping on these kids is even more disgusting than on the video we looked at last week.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:39:59
Josh Watch this. I didn't know all the way through
I'll tell you why. Because I thought I heard a siren. I thought the authorities my IP provider or my, you know, my internet provider was coming and had reported me these things for anybody who hasn't seen them. I cannot. I can't recommend them. They make children hold their hands out and sniff things. It is
Josh Olson 1:40:35
bad or disgusting stuff on him. I also Yeah, I feel like the FBI as long as they're keeping track of us. Like if somebody watches more than two of these in a row, they should send somebody to your house. I think that's like a no brainer. This though. There's a new host, it's this guy, Javier de Russo. Dave, we talked about him a little while ago, I think in our first episode, but he's another one of those BLM guys who went, you know, went for the Prager money after watching a Prager video. But the Jesus, Jesus anyway, let's move on to James Madison. J cost is our host got nothing at all. He's done as he's done a few Prager U videos. Another another well known historian that no one's ever heard of.
[VIDEO] 1:41:19
From the time he joined the Continental Congress in 1780. Through his second term as the fourth president of the United States, James Madison was in the middle of everything. When it came to the Constitution, he understood it better than any single person, because nobody contributed more to its creation. When it came to selling that document to the American people, he made the most persuasive arguments.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:41:43
Okay, real fast. The reason why he wrote it is because he showed up before anybody else. This, like the so called constitutional convention wasn't supposed to be a constitutional convention. They were supposed to edit the Articles of Confederation. And then they got in without the authorities to do it and decided to do it live. Like they went in there. And they basically created a document that they weren't supposed to do. Everyone's like, I don't know that we have authority. And Madison's like, shut up. I've got to deal here. And then they did it. Second of all, in that video, it shows James Madison out telling people what the Constitution is and arguing for it like standing in front of people. That's not what happened. He was the queue and none of the time. And all of the compatriots were sending out anonymous messages in newspapers owned by wealthy people who wanted the constitution to get passed, and they didn't have the courage to sign their names to it. It was why and bullshit and the fact that they try and present this like this was all on the up and up this has been declared a coup d'etat by a bunch of people and the Federalist Papers are just outrageous bullshit.
Dave Anthony 1:42:54
It's so amazing like you just say that and like right nothing has changed. Nothing.
Speaker 1 1:43:00
Nothing when 10 amendments the Bill of Rights were needed to seal the deal. He wrote those to diminutive in stature he was just over five feet tall he was a giant in every other respect.
Josh Olson 1:43:11
Wait, wait wait what is up with this? You guys you got like these these guys go on I get it you sold me on why they bring up the fact that some of these guys are told but why why that he's demeaning What is something what this is a fetish This is a height fetish
preggers tall apparently preggers like 64 So I'm familiar understand.
Dave Anthony 1:43:38
I haven't I keep I've been outside his house. I haven't seen him come out yet. He got it. Five minutes away.
Josh Olson 1:43:51
We did episode last week. And while we're doing it, Dave was Googling and he found out we're praying or live to just like every five minutes. He's like, Oh my God, it was around the corner for me. Oh my god. Oh, my 2.4 million.
Dave Anthony 1:44:03
Like, like, oh, I can hop that gate.
Josh Olson 1:44:06
So it's just, this is just weirdness. Okay.
Speaker 1 1:44:09
As a writer, theorists, and most importantly, political pragmatist. He was a deep thinker who got things done, and no one worked harder to get those things done. James Madison was born in 1751 to a prosperous family in the Virginia Piedmont shocking like
Josh Olson 1:44:26
he's patting. This is padding. He worked hard to get things done and no one worked harder to get things done. He was short, and he was born in this place on this day. He lives in a house where he commuted to work. Three minutes to go
Speaker 1 1:44:46
mentor neighbor and best friend Thomas Jefferson. He was well educated in the classics and spoke multiple languages. His home state sent him as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1780 at the age of 29 There, he saw firsthand how bad national government could be slow, corrupt, self interested, what the mean, do something about it?
Dave Anthony 1:45:09
What does that mean? What like you just say that, but what does that mean? So he went, he went there. And he's like, Well, this is just what does it mean? What?
Jared Yates Sexton 1:45:18
So what happens as they're like and and I love that this never gets taught is that the United States government had like six or seven editions. Because these brain geniuses, the touched by by God Himself, Jehovah, like they were so inspired that they couldn't figure out how to run a government and it kept getting ready to fall apart. And James Madison, who, by the way, it's funny, where he got all of his books from he had to sell slaves to get them. And you never hear by the way, he was born on a ship farm and had to like mined for pennies, you know, like, in all of these situations, like it literally was they went in and they realized there was a better way for this to work for themselves. Yeah, right. And thank God by the way that we James Madison was this fast, like studious, asshole, cat notes that we can now read and recognize why people made the Constitution the way that they did, which was to serve their own interest. And basically to sit around and say, these are a bunch of idiots who shouldn't be allowed to vote and the poor are going to ruin everything. We need to make sure to run everything. And that's, that's James Madison. true legacy right there.
Dave Anthony 1:46:28
You do you cover all this in your book?
Jared Yates Sexton 1:46:30
Yeah, I unfortunately, when I did it American rule. I had never read Madison's notes. Those are wild. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I know that if I was going to design like a public school curriculum, that's one of the first things anybody should read is to understand why this country was made the way that it was in to watch the southern states hold all of this up. And for people to basically say at some point, like give the southern states all the power we'll we'll keep slavery in there. We'll deal with it later. In the things that they say about regular citizens. It is remarkable.
Josh Olson 1:47:07
You shouldn't contact Praeger you volunteer to
Jared Yates Sexton 1:47:09
yeah, we'll get right onto it right in there.
Josh Olson 1:47:12
Five minutes
Speaker 1 1:47:14
wasn't alone, George Washington and others push for a new social compact, a document that would truly bind the divergent interests of the various states. no easy feat. Their efforts paid off in May 1787 When a new constitutional convention was convened in Philadelphia. Even though he was one of the younger delegates, Madison took a lead role, not because he was so ambitious, but because he was so knowledgeable. He attended every session gave more speeches than anyone took meticulous notes and drafted the plan that the delegates used as the framework for the new constitution. I love that
Josh Olson 1:47:53
those are all just stepping up look, I'm the smartest guy here I better do this.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:47:56
I love by the way that they have to try and give George Washington some Stolen Valor. That dudes that at that convention like the dead grandma National Lampoon's like, I mean it's incredible, like But no, he really needed that to happen. He didn't care. And Madison, everything about this was self serving, like just an absolute corrupting influence over this old thing.
[VIDEO] 1:48:24
Writing the document was hard enough, selling it to the American people would prove even harder. A group known as the anti Federalists began flooding the newspapers with anti constitution essays, warning that the plan will destroy Liberty rather than save it. Madison in New York lawyer Alexander Hamilton came to the Constitutions defense in a series of essays known as the Federalist Papers, the two men were a dynamic duo. Hamilton did the lion's share the writing, but Madison's submissions arguably had the most impact. He carefully explained the system of checks and balances that would define the new government. The Federalists carried the day, just barely, and the Constitution was ratified.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:49:10
The anti Federalists, by the way, basically said that this is being carried out by a group of people who didn't have the authority to do it. And it's going to create a country in which the wealthy are going to control everything based on their own whims. Turns out Ding, ding, ding, but second of all, yeah, it's just awesome. Again, this idea that Hamilton and Madison were putting their name on any of this, it was completely anonymous. And it was being pushed by the people who are gonna benefit the most from the founding of the country through the framing. And and it was a total con job. It was propaganda through and through, and the checks and balances was all about making sure that democracy would never ever actually threaten any of their power, and they got what they wanted.
Dave Anthony 1:49:59
Oh, worked out good though in the end and by end I literally mean and
Jared Yates Sexton 1:50:05
the literal end of the world and an American right well done
Josh Olson 1:50:15
anything more on this guy cuz we've got our we're going out on a big one no nothing? No. So making his first appearance on our show he's done one to 10 videos crammed into too much I do want to say so I can feel it coming out of my mouth and I'm gonna regret saying it in a minute but this was no James Madison in the Constitution with your guest instructor Dave. Dinesh D'Souza my boy. I think he's the first Prager commentator we've come across. He's done time.
Dave Anthony 1:50:55
Yeah. So yeah.
Josh Olson 1:50:58
So much to say, but we could do an entire this is what's terrifying me as I hear these words come out. We could do an entire podcast on Dinesh. In fact, we could do an entire podcast on his six movies that he's written and directed. Six, six, I got damnit. Is that just is that just a bridge too far? Is that what we have sunk to load? I can't do his documentary about how Joe Biden stole the election from Donald Trump.
Dave Anthony 1:51:29
I can't, I absolutely can't, I would not survive that. Maybe that's maybe so
Josh Olson 1:51:36
folks. $75,000 in our Venmo, the week after this comes out Dave and I will do the 75 Grand, let's set that as the goal sort of $5,000
[MUSIC] 1:51:48
they had risked everything. Sorry about that.
Josh Olson 1:51:52
Jared, you've you've heard of Dinesh before? I'm sure.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:51:55
I gotta be honest, I'm a little intimidated. There's too much intellectual heft with this guy? I mean,
Josh Olson 1:52:01
the question, let's ask a question. Is Dinesh D'Souza as dumb as he presents? Or is that all part of the grift?
Dave Anthony 1:52:13
I think he's that dumb myself,
Josh Olson 1:52:15
usually that I met,
Jared Yates Sexton 1:52:16
I spent over a decade in academia. And I gotta tell you, there was a certain type of academic that I came across, over and over and over again, and it was the the academic who knew absolutely nothing, but was so certain about the nothing that they knew. And Dinesh is incredible in that, like it is it's basically in his head, I think, are just a bunch of rat farts. And like, for him, it's the most beautiful shining object that he has ever seen in his entire life. Like, I think he's for real, I really, truly do. He speaks with such certainty.
Dave Anthony 1:52:59
We've really gotten the level of that is increased with the COVID. And stuff like that. antivax. Like, it's, it's just that absolute certainty, and they're just completely wrong. And you're just like, this is an arrogantly saying it like, so like, you just don't get it? And you're like, No, it's just this exactly what he is.
Josh Olson 1:53:28
I mean, it's just astonishing to think somebody that all these people or something, you know, the way that Donald Trump, I mean, I think he's one of the dumbest stumps who ever lived. And yet, he does have this sort of innate, you know, lizard brain that knows how to play the media, and he played it well, and he tapped into some very simple ideas, and nobody knew how to deal with that. And you get there. It's like, all of these people have some kind of mutability, because, you know, I know people who are significantly smarter than Dinesh D'Souza but can't figure out how to, you know, make the kind of money he's making even though they're trying I mean, it's, it's, there's something going on, it's like, he's figured something out, but Jesus Christ I mean, if you have that kind of intelligence, convinces you that you're smart about everything else do that's the other problem. I won't the only person here I bet I'm the only person here knows how to tie your shoes the right way.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:54:24
Well, I was getting ready to say I think probably probably hurt himself multiple times brushing his teeth. That I want to point out the reason why Dinesh is able to do what he does, is because this entire ecosystem, that conservative right wing, bullshit ecosystem, it's just a bunch of billionaires like Harlan Crowe, making sure that these people are continually given everything that they want. They buy up every copy of their book they sell at their movie theater, and they buy the way they buy everybody who watches their stuff, who reads their stuff. It's all artificial in order to crew Create this completely astroturfed alternate take and ignore pro if you're able
Josh Olson 1:55:06
to, as you say, speak as though you genuinely believe this stuff and have the added attraction of being non white. That yeah, there's there's money to be made there. Anyway, well, let's let's let's get into our this year James Madison in the Constitution.
[VIDEO] 1:55:25
The preamble to the American Constitution begins with the phrase, We the People, but could the people of America be counted on to do the right thing all or even most of the time?
Dave Anthony 1:55:37
Good question. No, don't you think? I mean, just know, like, that's not
Josh Olson 1:55:49
I mean, someone needs to take care of them. Right.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:55:52
That's right. That's why we need an authoritarian leaders govern government. Let's make it happen. Everybody. Very good. So,
Josh Olson 1:56:00
but you see the appeal of that, because it's easy to look at the world and go, Man, there's some dumb people in this world or man, some people shouldn't be able to vote or mean, some people should be and it's like, yeah, okay. All right, at that point, but to take that and then turn it into a political philosophy, in which Okay, so now we should just, we should hand power over to a group of people who are, by the way, even less reliable, and yeah. Yeah, yeah. The
Speaker 10 1:56:28
principal architect of the Constitution, James Madison, gave this question a great deal of thought his answer was a decided, no, whenever there is an interest and power to do wrong, he said, wrong will generally be done.
Josh Olson 1:56:43
But except for us, right.
Speaker 10 1:56:51
For his new nation, Madison wanted as much freedom as possible, with as little government as possible. But he had no illusions. Tyranny he knew, comes in many forms. It's not confined to monarchies and dictatorships, and democratic society, the threat of tyranny comes from the people themselves. The founders call this the tyranny of the majority, the majority, well, if it can put its own interests above those of the minority, and generally not hesitate to deprive it, of its rights and freedoms. This is why a
Jared Yates Sexton 1:57:24
gentleman, there aren't many of us in this room. There are many of them out there. What can we do to that we the land owning, slave owning, aristocratic white male class of this country? How do we ensure that people don't take what we have and change things in ways that we don't want them to be changed? The tyranny of the majority is saying the rest of the people, they can pounce, and we need to take care of our interest. And that's it. That's the entire philosophy from the very beginning.
Josh Olson 1:57:59
He's admitting it. He is. He, I'm not sure he quite knows the degree to which he's admitting it.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:58:11
They think it's one of the greatest things about this country they really truly do is that it was founded by a small group of white elites, and that they tried to ensure that the best of the best were the only ones who had power. They, I mean, that's literally what they want. They want a one party system of the wealth class. And that's it. I mean, that's what they've been pushing for, you know, with their entire political project all along. Yeah.
Speaker 10 1:58:34
Addison was preoccupied with the problem of what he called factions the word he used for any kind of organized pressure group, Madison deemed both minority and majority factions, dangerous, yet of the two types of factions, he considered a majority faction to be more dangerous. Why? Because minority factions can be curbed by the power of the majority, but who will curb the majority? This is the central purpose of the Constitution to limit frustrate, and in some cases, block majority rule. As Madison put it, the great task was to devise a document that would first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
Jared Yates Sexton 1:59:20
That's awesome. That's just great. What Madison intended was to create the House of Representatives to give the illusion of democracy while the Senate was directly appointed by the wealth class. And by the way, factions was to keep parties from ever forming, because these brain geniuses thought a bunch of wealthy people would get one place and always agree on the same things. Turns out, it lasted until 1800 1800.
Dave Anthony 1:59:48
incredibly long, really long run, it didn't
Jared Yates Sexton 1:59:51
last. It didn't last. And if you actually want to go ahead and think about like they even got in a room and they were like, how do we avoid a civil war? They avoided it for like Not even a century, like they literally had not that much in the way of foresight. The only reason why this type of government has perpetuated is because it does protect the wealth of the minority. It does a great job of that all of these institutions are created for that, which is one of the reasons we're in the mess we're in. But also
Josh Olson 2:00:19
talk to me like a dummy. I mean, it is also at times advantaged in a way that's, that's essential. certain minority groups, you know, civil rights were not popular with the masses. There have been times when when the needs of the minority have won the day because of this system. Is that incorrect?
Jared Yates Sexton 2:00:43
No, it's not incorrect. The funny thing about it is it's just not the way that it was intended to work. You know, like, that's the thing is like, the progress that's happened in this country has been in spite of the controls that are there like so for instance, the Supreme Court, like the way that it's acting right now is how the Supreme Court was designed to design to exactly exactly right, right. And for people to say, Oh, my God, I can't believe they're doing this. The founders would roll over in their graves. No, this is exactly what the founders wanted this stuff to work like.
Josh Olson 2:01:12
There's there's Brianna, Joy gray did a great piece will be a couple weeks ago on this drops about the Clarence Thomas brouhaha, and she's quite right. She's like, people are losing their minds over this, but they're completely wrong. It's like, This is who he is. This is who the court is. He is behaving completely and utterly consistently with who he has always been. And not secretively. He's like, This is who he has been from the get go. This is the philosophy he's a spouse from the get go. This is he's behaving in a way that he is believe publicly is correct, in the way the court was designed to, to work. And yeah, and I would say also, like, those times when that the government has stepped in to protect the minority from the majority in a way that we would all agree was good. It has been at great urging, and tremendous sacrifice of that minority. It's, the government did not just wake up one day and go, Hey, we need to, we need to let that black folks vote. That's not how it happened. No,
Dave Anthony 2:02:06
no. Did you not read? All men are created equal? It's in. It's there.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:02:17
And you know, what, you
Josh Olson 2:02:22
know, some of that stuff is sort of like, oh, shit, I guess I guess we got to go along with that, right.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:02:27
I mean, that's the thing is it really is the fact that the when there has been progress in this country, it's that rhetoric and mythology that we've all talked about, that's been used against the wealth class who controls these apparatuses of government. And it's incredible when it's happened, it actually if you because, you know, people like to say they're like, oh, when you look at American history, critically, like, Oh, this is demoralizing and awful. It's like, no, we've done some shit. Like, we have achieved some incredible things in spite of this machinery. And that should inspire you to I don't know, go out there and fight for better shifts, and more and more progressive shed and and and it's a possibility, but yeah, everything is everything is lined up against that.
Dave Anthony 2:03:10
Yeah, I mean, just the fact that we got like, the eight hour workday, the weekends, like all that stuff, like people had to
Jared Yates Sexton 2:03:18
die, die murdered,
Dave Anthony 2:03:21
murdered, to get that, like, everyone's like, we're making progress. It's like, No, you have to do you want health care for all? You have to put your body on the line on the line in the fucking streets? That's the only way you get it is to scare them. That's right.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:03:39
And
Josh Olson 2:03:43
yeah, I don't say yes. But you know, what, if everybody tweeted for it, that would be a step in the right direction that would start to scare them if they woke up. Oh, I That might mean the current administration in the previous administration, the previous administration, if they woke up, everybody on Twitter was going, yeah, we've had it we want we want free health care.
Dave Anthony 2:04:00
I mean, look that shit out of that set up with the test. Right? They said, What are we gonna give you up free? COVID tests and everyone went? Yeah, yeah, that's what we want. And then it's actually we're like, oh, stupid. But you're right. There's a giant segment of the population that are just like, No, don't upset that. Democrats. Don't we don't want to make them mad. Yeah.
Josh Olson 2:04:19
Like, can you just make it easier for Trump to win?
Dave Anthony 2:04:23
And just just tweeting is like the least you could possibly do?
Jared Yates Sexton 2:04:29
Well, and meanwhile, it's a bunch of statements that are like, Hey, I hear you and I wish I could do something. Meanwhile, once they're off the podium, they're like, we have those robot dogs ready. And we outfit those with like, pepper balls and maybe automatic weapons, and we got drones, right, because that
Josh Olson 2:04:46
is probably the perfect example though. Here's, here's one because look, there's a lot of things you can't go on and shouldn't be able to go on and go on social media publicly and state. But again, if tomorrow everybody tweeted, hey, if you start putting robot dogs on My neighborhood, we're going to destroy them. That's not the right word.
Dave Anthony 2:05:07
Like literally, if you see a robot dog, you should try to destroy it. Like, it should become so costly every time they want to put a robot dog on the street that they stopped doing it. It needs, like we all need to attack the robot dogs.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:05:19
Well, number one, I love that we're talking about robot murdered dogs this way. You want to know how that constitution worked out, two thumbs up no notes. But I also want to point out and Dave, you already brought this up, but people need to understand organized labor was hunted down and murdered. There were wars in the streets in order to get children out of the workplace to get a 40 hour work week to get a weekend. That's how much they do not want to give and they are pushing your children into factories and slaughterhouses now, yeah, they are going to take away Social Security and Medicare as much as they possibly can. And if you want to make a stink about it, like what's happening in France, they are creating weaponry and surveillance, yes, to be ready for that. And that ration That's truth.
Dave Anthony 2:06:14
It's like, what did you think was happening with all of the police and all of the weapons coming back from Iraq and going into police hands? They are looking at the future and they see they see climate change. And they see the poor rising up and they're just getting ready for it. And robot dogs, all of the people who when the when the robots came out, and they were like, look, this is fun. My first thought was, it's going to have a gun on it. Like immediately like that is a terrible thing. Have you not seen movies robots will destroy us? It's crazy. Like
Josh Olson 2:06:55
the TV show can be seen now on
Dave Anthony 2:07:02
the other day, what would what was the one thing if I could go back in time and kill one person? It would be Allan Pinkerton got a bad choice.
Josh Olson 2:07:11
It's a real TV show. But I know a lady Pinkerton the lady.
Dave Anthony 2:07:17
Yes. What's her name from the office? She's lady.
Josh Olson 2:07:22
Okay, is it a reboot of another show?
Dave Anthony 2:07:25
Oh, no. They're good. There. She's making a new a new show. I think it's a movie about Lady Pinkerton. It's great. Everything's good. It's good. People, people from people from the office. Now it's two of them who were just cranking out the most obscene horrifying. Fucking authoritarian, nightmarish.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:07:49
I gotta be honest. When you said Pinkerton television show I literally thought that I had just like suffered a break from reality. I thought I did. I didn't know if I was still with the gentleman that that just that's I don't know if
Josh Olson 2:08:05
I'm gonna look it up. Boy. Oh, what is the woman from the offense because I'm sure I can't find Daisy. Remember?
Dave Anthony 2:08:11
I'll get it.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:08:13
I feel like I'm dying and the DMT is just hidden.
Josh Olson 2:08:17
It's the bigger pins is currently a Canadian Western police procedural television series features crime cases of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. It's officially licensed with the Pinkerton Detective Agency and feature stories based on actual cases. Wow.
Dave Anthony 2:08:34
Wow. Yeah, here we go. Emily Blunt. And we will play Pinkerton Detective Kate worn in the new CO production with Dwayne Johnson. So yeah, so she's a lady Pinkerton. And like, once I was wrong about who it was. But like, like the Pinkertons are still out there. And they're still Yes. If anything, like
Josh Olson 2:08:58
there's female Pinkerton Detective.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:09:00
Wait, timeout. Wait, I'm so sorry. Emily Blunt is starting as a Pinkerton Detective her husband starring as a CIA agent. What is happening in that house?
Dave Anthony 2:09:09
Oh, they are clearly there. Wow. Right wing was like he had quotes to Langley. He had quotes about going to like, where it was just like I've come to the I've come back home like it was just insane. They are very right wing obviously. By the way, if
Jared Yates Sexton 2:09:26
anybody listening this doesn't know who the Pinkertons are. Go google it. Spin it out. Afternoon. It is a secret army of capsules
Josh Olson 2:09:34
not. Let me tell you something. There were there were guys working for J Edgar Hoover's FBI at the peak of his monstrousness who actually solved a crime or two that should have been solved. That's a fact. I will fight anybody who says otherwise. Maybe even three of them. The Pinkertons this is like doing a show about the First Lady SS officer. Yeah, this is Oh, there's a strike striking mineworkers get the Pinkertons they'll come kill them.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:10:03
They will literally murder your children murder them in front of you.
Dave Anthony 2:10:09
Right now the Pinkertons are active in what I would call pre arrests, where they are framing climate activists before they can get started and get going. They are horrifying.
Josh Olson 2:10:28
Oh, it's a feature film. Here's what I love. The possibility that whoever's writing the latest draft of that thing is cramming to get it done before the union they're in that would be the Writers Guild. Goes on strike I need to get my script about the Pinkertons done before my union goes on strike
I love my business. It's five minutes my to happy talk Dinesh D'Souza folks
Speaker 10 2:11:04
how to do this. Madison had a plan. First, the Constitution had to be written down. We're so accustomed today to the national constitution.
Dave Anthony 2:11:15
So hold on, so hold on. I, I'm confused now. Because I thought because up until
Josh Olson 2:11:21
now, here's the deal. We're gonna go Mr. Franklin, please. We're gonna go house to house. And we're going to explain it to them. Well, there's, well, there was a time better idea.
Dave Anthony 2:11:35
There was a guy at the costume convention, the firt. The first round, which you've talked about there? We don't right. But he was called the memorizer. And just take it all in. And then he was yes was to go door to door.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:11:48
I gotta tell you, by the way, speaking of scripts, I love that whoever typed out this script, typed out, first, write it down. And then he was like, It's time for lunch? What a great. I just nailed that. Roman. Now,
Josh Olson 2:12:05
one of the interesting things about these is it's hard to find, you know, I've said this before on the show, like, you know, in our business, Jared, if you spend five minutes working on a straight to video, Steven Seagal action film as a craft service person, the first thing you do is you're on IMDb and make sure that you get a credit for it. You know? You can't find who works on some of these things. You can't find the directors you certainly especially with the kids stuff, you can't find who wrote it, you can't find a director that you can't find. Have you
Jared Yates Sexton 2:12:35
looked the registry in your neighborhood to find out?
Josh Olson 2:12:41
Am I gonna find sex offenders and the people who write for Prager, you.
Speaker 10 2:12:47
But we need to remember that prior to the American Constitution, no country in the world had one. And since the adoption of the US Constitution, many countries have had constitutions that came and went some lasting just a few years, yet the American Constitution has now endured for nearly two and a half centuries.
Josh Olson 2:13:07
Two questions seriously, because I don't know. Is that true? Are we the first constitution? I'm assuming there's other things that just weren't called the Constitution? Correct, that
Jared Yates Sexton 2:13:16
there were understandings, you know what I mean, like the way that these things sort of work is, what he's trying to argue is he's trying to have his cake and eat it too. He's trying to say that America is not a democracy, but it has democratic principles, right, like anybody could read. Right? And so yeah, there's some truth to it, but also like, I know this is gonna shock you This is staggering bullshit. is what it is. It means not much.
Josh Olson 2:13:45
Well, ya know what I'm also like, as you sitting here what other countries have done it but they have lasted as long like, good. They're always the one as a kid was like, Well, it's a you know, it's a fluid document. It's meant to grow and change. And again, no, it doesn't mean Cuba just rewrote or wrote a new one was a couple years ago new constitution that did things like codifying women's rights and gay rights and stuff like ship some some things we don't have in our constitution yet. What is it? I mean, we know objectively that does not that is not a thing that makes our constitution good and what is in these people's minds? That makes it good. To Dinesh D'Souza who does not believe that the whole point of the thing is to protect, you know, rich, white racist want to just be what is in his mind that makes it good that the Constitution is lasted? So.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:14:36
I mean, paying love saying the oldest liberal democracy in the world, they love saying that, you know, it's like, McDonald's, over 10 million served. I mean, really, but what it comes down to is literally that they have money and wealth and power. That's it. I mean, that's it as long as they have that. That's what America stands for. But they they don't care otherwise. Yeah, yeah.
Josh Olson 2:14:58
I mean, why wouldn't be mapable I don't think hear about the best. Well, let's be the best. Not the oldest, not to be ageist here.
Dave Anthony 2:15:09
I can't understand why. I can't live in their head trying to, I don't know,
Josh Olson 2:15:14
trying to trying to you know, when we first started dropping these episodes, I can't tell you how many people are like, Oh, God, don't get read pilled and like, I'm not worried about
Dave Anthony 2:15:22
I know that someone said that the other day to me that like you're gonna get read pilled and like, because, like, how dumb Do you think I am? Like, am I like it? That's like, a turtle level? Yeah, like, I'm I haven't.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:15:32
I will say, I'm gonna get concerned in about three or four more episodes. If in the middle of a discussion, somebody just starts talking about height. I don't know, man. I think he's about six, five.
Josh Olson 2:15:47
I guess Jeremy Sexton is five foot 10 foot?
Dave Anthony 2:15:49
I don't know. I don't listen to anyone. And
Josh Olson 2:15:53
we should go back and get him we should do that. We shouldn't announce everybody's height in the introduction. Yeah, we had a not to get into but but there's also, I think my favorite Twitter exchange, since we've come out is the guy who was like, oh, yeah, you guys just gonna be bagging on them. You know, as a considered Have you considered paying attention? Have you considered ever actually listening to what the other side has to say? Where like, we just announced that we're doing 10 episodes deep dive into Prager. You think we didn't watch any of the what did we just see you're talking about? Oh, my God. They're so dumb. Because in his mind, if we had actually watched them, Dave, we would have right
Dave Anthony 2:16:31
do we could come over?
Jared Yates Sexton 2:16:32
Can I point out by the way, they are significantly dumber than I even expected them to be? Yeah.
Josh Olson 2:16:38
That's the thing. It's astonishing.
Dave Anthony 2:16:41
It's that that's so I mean, a big part of this is how much the the level of education has fallen. So my, my uncle was a teacher for 30 years. And he, in starting, whatever, I don't know, 70s or something. And he decided to give the same test that he gave back in the day, and everybody failed. And it's he just he because he was like, you know, I'm watching. He's like, I'm watching this year after year. They're, they're, they're less educated. And he's a history teacher. And that's really what we're, that's where our biggest failure is. And that's also the root of fascism, if you can,
Jared Yates Sexton 2:17:27
it's intentional to
Josh Olson 2:17:29
digital. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Dave Anthony 2:17:32
So you get so you get to this place where we're now watching this propaganda that is so shockingly stupid. And then you see how many people believe it and you can't wrap your head around how incredibly dumb it is. And it is a level of dumb, I did not think possible. It's spectacularly stupid.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:17:55
Well, I think what Trump and Q anon and all that has shown us is some people are just looking for a story, any story, just give me a story that will go ahead and make me feel the way that I want to feel. And it doesn't even have to make sense. It doesn't have to like checking boxes. And that's what American history has to be. For some people, it has to just be a story that you know, and you don't have to deviate from it whatsoever. I mean, that's why this is such thin gruel. Because if you talk about anything else, you will literally have to start having conversations, you know, like when they made the Thomas Jefferson video, they knew they had to talk about slavery, they had to at least address it. And to do so in not just a disingenuous way, but a stupid way. Like, it just goes. We're ready to go. That's fine. It's fine. So
Josh Olson 2:18:41
much that it's cultural. But yeah, it is it's and you know, it had been going on beforehand. But Reagan had his way with the educational system in California, and then came to power in DC and started going after the system. We've never recovered from that. But you know, every now and then somebody puts something up. It's just, it's startling. Every now and then somebody would put a clip up from just a mainstream popular talk show from the 60s or 70s. You know, yeah, and you're watching it. Listen, Jim Brown and Alexa dramatics, neither of whom, by the way, are plugging any fucking thing. You know, on the Cavett Show, talking segregation. I mean, it's great. It ends with Lester Maddox, like running off the stage because Tim Brown just gets more and more pissed off. But, you know, there's oil that
Dave Anthony 2:19:24
you put that Joshua went up the other day or that Richard
Josh Olson 2:19:26
Pryor. Yeah. Richard Pryor. Talk about some crazy old white lady reporter about Alice, she's talking about how there's no homeless people and priors gets into any serious he's like not going to do a bit. He's trying to get it and he's like, I'm not even gonna talk about black poverty because you'll go crazy starts talking about poor people. And Appalachian she's like, Well, no, they don't go hungry. Really. And you know, and they have a conversation again, neither of them there to plug anything. And, and you know, the stuff that was going out as mainstream news entertainment, if you will, 40 years ago compared to what it is now is astonishing. And that is it's about education. about the way these people have just had their way with it, combined with I guess that that thing that also happened around the same time where where media became just kowtow out into believing you have to show both sides of every argument, both sides of every argument. You know, we've got Jesse Jackson here saying racism is bad for a counterpoint. Counterpoint. Yeah, the kind of talking about the impending climate crisis, you don't have to have a counterpoint. You know, Ralph Nader's, on talking about how we better have seatbelts on our cars, they didn't put somebody else on it. You've it's amazing, the car companies didn't do that. They just let him talk on TV, you didn't have to have a counterpoint. Not.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:20:45
It's literally gotten to the point where it clouds here, it got to the point where scientists are like, Hey, your gas stoves might be giving your children asthma and other problems. And the other side is turn them on, turn them up all the way.
Josh Olson 2:21:02
COVID, that's COVID. And then now in
Dave Anthony 2:21:05
what the best thing about COVID is COVID actually is making a lot of people dumber. So like you thought we were done before.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:21:19
It's really amazing. I love by the way that this is the basis of my relationship with you too, is she had imagined, like, it's so great. I get such a kick out of both of you. And I gotta come on and talking about this dumb shit. It's incredible.
Dave Anthony 2:21:36
I'd like like, we've seen a lot of dumb stuff. And I occasionally will, we'll see a clip on Fox or whatever. And I think it's dumb. I cannot. I absolutely cannot explain how fucking dumb This is. And how many people believe it. This is a level of stupidity that I thought would have had a smaller following. But this is a massive, massive propaganda machine. It is spectacular, spectacularly stupid.
Josh Olson 2:22:11
And we'll be back with more of it next week.
Until we can come up with something even dumber to talk about we just keep swirling, just circling the drain here at the audit.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:22:26
I mean, it's just the theory. It's his fault.
Dave Anthony 2:22:29
It's so fucking dangerous. Because, yes, at the end of the day, this is how fascism happens. It's a void of history. Look, our government doesn't exist in a great example of, of how there is a void in information that is filled with nonsense is COVID. Right? The government has not come out and said look, this is this is a long COVID happened. This is what's happening to people. This is what's dangerous. This is what isn't dangerous. So what's filled the void. It's the vaccines, man. That's happening because our government has not done its job and explained what's happening. And now that's everything. That's history. That's all of the shit it gets filled with nonsense. And here you are. And that's how fucking fascism happened.
Josh Olson 2:23:13
I was gonna die. I don't know why Dave survives because like his other show, he does American history, which you know, make sure to blow your brains out. Like my other show is like I get to find filmmakers and comedians and people whose work I enjoy and we talk about something we love. We talk about great fucking movies and you go away feeling like you know, art beauty. Brotherhood. keeps me sane, but that's why I'm sitting with a smile on my face and Dave looks like he's about them.
Dave Anthony 2:23:39
Not all not all dollops are not all dollops are, are bad. There's a history of our country is not great, but you know, everyone loves the baseball ones. I know you don't enjoy them, but
Josh Olson 2:23:54
I enjoy the baseball I bought my favorite ones is the dumb guy who chase cars
Dave Anthony 2:23:58
over the roof. But like I just did Ricky, like, that's fun. And then we do some about people that, you know, it's just crazy, wacky stories. But when you get into when you get into the reality of it like pg&e, like I mean, my God.
Josh Olson 2:24:14
You know, I did 20 minutes with the Riza talking about how much he loves Yentl. I mean, that will make you feel good about the world in a way that
Dave Anthony 2:24:26
was good. It's not all about feeling good about the world. We didn't get education. So my podcast is to educate people. Just like mine that makes you feel worse. It's called buying the best.
Jared Yates Sexton 2:24:39
podcast that was like twice a week. My life
Josh Olson 2:24:48
so we'll be back next week with another episode of the audit. Next week. We're going to be looking at how Prager you portrays leftism, it's going to be a hoot. Our guest again was great Jared he hates us Sexton you can find him on Twitter at JY Sexton he's great follow and a great fellow. If you want to support us remember it's letter news.com/audit You can get our tip jar, you can become a subscriber to the lever. And remember, follow us on Twitter at at the audit podcast and email us at the audit podcast@gmail.com. And just a special shout out that clip at the beginning of the show of my dear friend the great Harlan Ellison comes from a wonderful documentary called dreams with sharp teeth, directed by the wonderful Eric Nelson. You should check it out. It's available on Amazon streaming as we speak. I think you can still even get DVDs of it. Fantastic movie. We'll be back next week with more of the audit.
[MUSIC] 2:25:47
Good morning class. Today we're learning all about socialism, deviant sects and devil worship. And how cool
shimmy science fiction is next week, if you finally had enough of him being college left wing. Get yourself a real degree from Prager University is here to give everyone free vaccine. Science is a commie plot. Our professors can't be bothered. All textbooks are so arose free at Prager University My pronouns are no more guilt. No more blame. No more head to toe white male shame, no waves on your family tree at Prager University
Josh Olson 2:27:03
we want to thank our incredible support team. Brian siano, our free floating agent of chaos aka research guy
Dave Anthony 2:27:12
and also Colin McCoy who does all of our music. You can also find him he out there and music world He is known as diesel boots.