Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the call it like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of call it like I see it, we're going to react to a recent piece from the Atlantic that considers the outer limits of liberalism and raises a specific example. That may be a little straw man ish, but raises that example to discuss whether the idea of preserving individual liberty can be taken too far.
And later on, as we observe Juneteenth, we're going to consider whether, quote, anti wokeness is something that is inherently anti black history in light of what we know about America's past treatment of black Americans.
Joining me today is a man who is happy to let us all enjoy the light as long as we remember that he's the sun. Tunde Ogun. Lana Tunde, you ready to shine some light on us today?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: See, that's what makes you a great friend.
You always know how to introduce me. She's the sun. I can't even, I'm not even gonna comment.
It might ruin this beautiful brightness you got shining all over me.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: No, that's good.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Just keep us moving before I screw it up.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Now we're recording this on June 19, 2023. And this week we saw a very interesting think piece in the Atlantic by David Brooks. In it, Brooks takes a look at Canada's assisted suicide law and uses that as an example of when liberalism, which, despite how it's been framed in the United States in the last 30 or 40 years as an insult by right wing Americans, is essentially an ideology dedicated to preserving individual liberty and seeking equality under the law. But when that goes too far is essentially what this piece from the Atlantic is about. Now you can see, as you follow through the article and even maybe just hearing what I'm saying, you can see the logic that he follows and that if you preserve and protect individual liberty to the extreme, to the end, then you may be indifferent at best to preventing circumstances where someone decides to end their own life. But there's also some straw man to that. But nonetheless, the concept of ideological extremes versus balance in terms of how we operate our societies is something that's always good to revisit. So to get us started, Tundang, what stood out to you most in the article?
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Man, it was a great article. I think what stood out to me the most was just the concept of liberalism as a political philosophy and how much it really overlaps basically, not only the founding documents of our nation, but kind of the founding spirit and our culture. And I think you already said it, which I know we'll get into it a little bit more kind of this, explaining some of these definitions, because you're right, the word liberal over the last probably 50 years and more so the last 30 years has become more of a pejorative in the american dialogue. And I think that for the purpose of this conversation, let's be clear that we're going to separate the idea of a liberal political philosophy, which is seen around the world, and we'll get into all that, which is a real thing. Yeah, yeah. Versus the american political culture of, let's say, either the american left or the american progressive left, you know, however one wants to define, and I think what you just said is accurate, is that from a political discourse standpoint, the word liberal has been lumped together and kind of, to many people in America means one thing. But here what we're talking about is the philosophy of liberal governments and how to organize a society.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: And I think that, I think that would be oversimplifying it, though, because you would still say if you're talking about a liberal ideology, that what is the pejorative? Liberals in the United States, they are doing stuff in large part that draws the ire of people. But in the context of pursuing more individual liberty, people can do what they want to do. They don't have to adhere to these certain norms or, you know, things, that this is just how we do these things, or that people need to be treated equally and stuff like that. So I don't think you can separate it. And I don't think it's all about the organization of the government. There's the ideology which forms the basis of how you're going to kind of say, okay, well, here are the rules, here are the things the government's going to get involved in here is not now where you, I do think you get more separation is at its core, like, if you want to look at it from the american political kind of definition, libertarian. Libertarian is also one who is an extreme individual liberty person as well.
But in their context, it's, the government does even less. The government does less. In the kind of american left context, it's like, well, let's use the government to pursue these means that we consider to be towards individual liberty and equality amongst society.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I think let's expound on it, too, because I think this is where the confusion in the american culture of discourse as relates to this topic, I think plays out. Because in even preparing for today, one of the things, that's what I mean, it was surprising and not in a bad way, just for me to be reminded that all the founding documents of our country from the First Amendment, Bill of Rights or, sorry, all the amendment constitutional amendments plus the constitution itself, plus the Bill of Rights are all liberal ideals. Right. And again, we'll talk, I know we'll get into this, in this discussion as to where the world was when this country was formed and why these ideals were so precious to the founding fathers. But again, like reading and preparing for today made me appreciate that you can have both conservative and liberal views and you can have a very healthy conservative political ideology within the framework of a liberal government and a liberal society. Let's put it that way. Like you're saying, the philosophy of liberalism as opposed to, and I think that's where we lose this discussion in the United States in terms of our culture, because liberalism as a philosophical thought for a nation, let's say, was developed out of the repressiveness of medieval into renaissance.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: The world, all the hereditary, you know, the monarchies, the kings, theocracies that, you know, operated as far as, you know, with using religious figures and so forth. Yeah. The whole history of the world is one way. And then liberalism springs out of that and says, okay, let's have individuals, you know, can be, can, can be self determining. And the government's not, there's not going to be necessarily in a way where we don't treat people or don't allow people. You know, if you create stuff, you get to keep it, you get to build on it. You know, we want to do competition and not just patronage from important, quote unquote, important people with the government. And, yeah, I mean, I think that when you're looking at it in that way.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Well, let me, let me finish where I was going because I think that's where we get it confused in the United States because, and you were going there, right?
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm about to make that point.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: That in the context of a liberal philosophy in terms of how to organize a society, the alternative is authoritarianism, patriarchy, and kind of the idea of inherited wealth and inherited power. And so that's why it just intrigues me, like you said, that the idea of individual rights and freedoms, for me as an American in 2023, that sounds like a very, I've been conditioned to believe that liberals don't believe that in America. You see what I'm saying? Well, that's where it says, that's where.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: It gets confusing if you're somebody in the United States because.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: I'll say this, and this is a totally uncontroversial statement from an intellectual standpoint, but it'll sound controversial, is the United States is a liberal nation. Its government is a liberal government. Now, interestingly enough to me is that what we have in the United States, what the US Constitution sets up, is a liberal government, but whose mechanisms and whose operations is very conservative. Conservative, if you go back from a historical standpoint, isn't really, really an ideology. That's an approach. An approach saying, okay, let's not, every time we think there's something that needs to be done, let's not just rip up everything we're doing and then lurch from one thing to something else. Let's be a little more measured in how we approach change and approach things that need to be done. Not saying that things never need to be done, but it's a little more status quo bias. So the fact that we have three branches of government is very conservative in the sense that with, excuse me, three branches of government with checks and balances on each other because it's not easy for just one person to get in and say, okay, we're going to do everything like this. Now there's all these checks and balances on each branch of the government. Each branch checks the other branches and so forth. And so it makes things move slow. A lot of times when change is needed, if, and if you're filling the planet up with greenhouse gas, you know, it makes it difficult to make changes. But that is our preferred, you know, as Americans, that's our preferred approach as opposed to having us lurching back and forth and everything like that. And so liberalism. And the liberalism in terms of the framework of the government, meaning there's no monarchy who is going to just rule over everybody. Church and state are expressly separated. So religious law or religious doctrine doesn't govern us in a way that is, that is going to restrict on your liberty and so forth, at least not supposed to, based on the Constitution. That's the liberal stuff. And the conservative stuff is the president can't just say, okay, everybody, you guys all have to, you have everybody pay me taxes, you know, I'm just gonna go, you know, and do what I want to do. It's like, no, no, no. Congress can check you if you're the president or the Supreme Court, you know, is the one who says what the law says and so forth. Congress can't just go and do what it wants to do either because there's checks and balances. So that's something that's lost because a lot of times we don't, we don't do civics. And then people a lot of times get caught, so emotionally caught up in these titles that what they are, we kind of lose who we are as Americans. And I think some of that's intentional. I do want to mention one thing real quick about, like, what stood out to me most in the article, and I know I gave that kind of background, but I do want to mention in the article because he's looking at assisted suicide. And I do, I think it was an interesting example to look at and say, hey, this is where liberalism can go too far. Because, yeah, if individuals have the liberty to choose how they want to live, conceivably they have the, they have the liberty to choose how they want to die and when they want to die and so forth. And so it really, it's this, there's the inherent tension between individual liberty. Which one key about individual liberty that you got to mention is that you're free to do those things to the extent you don't infringe somebody else's liberty, which deciding to kill yours, you know, deciding to assist in suicide stuff doesn't, that's not you hurting someone else. That's not you deciding, you know, that you're going to go driving a car into a crowd of people, you know. So it's an interesting example from that standpoint. It's an example that's been used throughout time. But we have a specific in Canada right now where they're doing it. So I thought that the way that that was brought in was a good way to have a conversation about these, how the, how you balance the idea of pushing for individual liberty versus. Okay, well, do we want a society where people can do this? Well, if we do, then we got to make sure we're okay. This is how it's not going to happen and so forth. So I thought the example you gave allowed a lot of questions to be asked about your own individual. Like me, myself, I can ask questions about myself. What is my individual kind of view on these things?
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I mean, that's, these are the kind of questions, I think, that almost in some ways are spiritual or religious in nature. Right. Like, am I allowed to just kill my, like you're saying, because this isn't like me just jumping off a bridge or taking a bunch of pills, right? This is me going to a hospital and saying I want to die. And then other people have to decide, am I worthy of taking my own life or not? The system has to have some input.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: And so I think Canada recently passed a law that recently, within the last ten years or so, that clears the path for people to do that and so forth. And the concern that's being raised is like, well, hold on, healthcare is expensive, so are we going to have doctors or medical personnel kind of explaining people to think or explaining things to people in a way that would lead them to conclude, whoa, I should probably just take my own life then. You know, in a sense that that may be like, in a way to engineer outcomes for that system, which is.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: Interesting, because we've talked about this, where extremes on, let's say both left and right end up meeting themselves in the middle again. And this is, was a reminder to me of that in several ways. One is, I thought, like you said, it was a good example to bring in this canadian, because the law was passed in 2016 and it was very restrictive to people that basically were at end of life type of stages and dealing with chronic pain and chronic, basically miserable. And they said by 2021, the Canadian Supreme Court had already made some changes and took out the idea of terminal illness as one of the causes that can lead someone to be able to say that they can just have their life ended by the medical system.
The article brings up exactly what you just said, which I thought was interesting, and I'll share. It says, once the equal and infinite dignity of all human life is compromised, everything is up for grabs.
And it talks about ideas like suggesting that babies with severe deformations and limited chance of survival be eligible for medically assisted death. Suddenly, people who are ill or infirm are implicitly encouraged to feel guilty for wanting to live. And what I felt was, this led me back to eugenics. Think about that. Remember when we did the show on eugenics? That's how it started. It started about just the infirm kind of the mentally disabled people. They wanted to sterilize people that were lesser than right, and that led in a less than a century, to the Holocaust and to Nazi Germany. And because it kept getting more and more extreme. And then it was like, okay, well, this whole group of people is unfit, so we're just going to exterminate them, basically. And I think that's almost like a natural abstract of if you start going down this road. And I just found that interesting, I'd never seen this connection.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Well, think about it like this. It is the inevitability aspect of that. If you're saying, if you're going to go this route and say, okay, government's going to authorize assisted suicide under the context of individual liberty, it is foreseeable that some of the restrictions that were initially put on it would be taken off because those restrictions by themselves are in themselves are the restrictions on the liberty.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: You know, so you're, you kind of, you're trying to put those protections in, and this is where you get into the balance that's required when you look at things like this and that. Why? Like I said, for me, there's a very introspective aspect of looking at something like this because it's like, okay, yeah, like, what do I think about this? Because I can see definitely both sides, meaning both sides are coming at it from not one side, they're just mad at the other side, but both sides coming at this in good faith, trying to figure out, well, where should the line be or should we go down? Is it too risky to go down this path? Because once we start going down this path, the inevitability is going to lead us to a place that we don't want to be in. So in a sense, we have to cut off a route that otherwise would be open so that we don't end up in a place that's too risky. Hence, drunk driving, so to speak. Like drunk driving in itself is not a guarantee to get in an accident. But we've decided that it puts you on a path where there's a heightened risk that we're just not willing to accept as a society.
But the other piece about this that you have to tie in is that Canada has a government paid healthcare system, a social health care system. And so, yes, you can see how there be, quote unquote social pressure, like, oh, if you're not going to make it, then how much longer you're going to be a quote unquote drain on the system. And so there gets into this optimized thinking, which isn't necessarily a humane way to look at things all the time. If you want to look at everything from an optimized standpoint, that actually ends up bending against liberalism at it. And this is where you talk about when you take things to the extreme, they end up circling back around because it's like, oh, well, then if we're going to try to optimize everything, then only people with the best chance of survival should be able to do x, Y, and z, or only the kids that are the brightest should get the best food if we're ever in a shortage. You start going with very illiberal ideals when you start trying to optimize everything, which, you know, while eugenics was based on very rudimentary understanding of things, that was kind of what they were doing in a sense, at least. The people, again, approaching in good faith, were trying to optimize it, so to speak.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: So, but the kind also, let me jump in there, because I think this is where authoritarian mindsets hijack the freedoms within, let's say, a liberal society, because you're right about that. Like, eugenics is a good example where, you know, this kind of, this going down this road, and I feel like this about, you know, a lot of other topics we can say both domestically here in the US and just in other countries when we observe other cultures, is somebody forgot to tell at some point the people who were promoting eugenics and basically putting their doctrine on others that those other people also deserve freedom and freedom of choice and freedom to be not harassed and be sterilized voluntarily and all that kind of stuff. Right. And so that's where, I think that's why both the extremes on any political kind of direction begin to mirror each other, because it all really is authoritarian versus.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: Well, there is a change, though, or there is a breakpoint, though, when it goes from being liberty to being either manipulation or persuasion being, to then being compulsion. And so we can't just dismiss those things. But the concern being is that once you make, once you make certain things about liberty, then human beings are still human beings, then what you're gonna end up having is there starts being like, you make it about liberty. And this is what they're seeing in Canada, it starts becoming a little bit more about persuasion than just liberty. And at least that's what they're observing in limited cases. That's not to say that that's happening all the time, but you open the door for that persuasion to start happening. And then once you open the door for that persuasion to start happening, you might open the door for the compulsion to start happening. And so it's not a slippery slope, but it is a pathway that can be opened up, like you said, by people who have a more authoritarian mindset and mindset in a lot of ways. And so, but my question is this for you.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Do you agree that liberalism, you know, as the belief and the push for greater individual liberty, I probably know the answer to this, but has an eventuality that many people would be uncomfortable with more in the abstract?
[00:20:09] Speaker B: Yes, I mean, of course, that's part of this discussion, right? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think, like, like we're kind of talking to anything taken to it is, sorry, anything taking to its extreme, it's probably not that comfortable for most people. And so I think, yes, I think, obviously, if everybody was allowed to do whatever they wanted with no guardrails, it would be like the movie purge forever, right? You have disorder, potentially chaos, and a feeling of uncertainty amongst a large part of the population.
And human beings want comfort, right? In a certain. I don't mean comfort like making you lazy. I just mean we like kind of an idea of knowing what to expect in a greater society in certain ways. And so once you have too much disorder and chaos, it becomes scary, and then you have that cycle. You know, people crave order, not disorder. And it goes back to the whole, you know, the empire versus the rebellion in Star wars, because, and again, both have their. Their pluses and minuses. Right? Order might suck sometimes because you're not free to do what you want, but you don't have to think too much, and a lot of things can be done for you. And some people like that better. Other people, I think that's a better.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: Way to put it, is that some people in general, this is something that is known from a psychological standpoint, is some people are more biased in terms of what they're comfortable in, in a more order society and a more society where the group unit is considered over the individual. And so therefore, everybody has to fit into a certain order to fit into the group, whereas other people are more comfortable in societies where the individual unit is more considered. And things that may make the group uncomfortable are something that the group just has to deal with, so to speak, because the individual gets to determine their own, you know, their own kind of.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: You know, as I was thinking about answering this question, a couple of recent kind of just cultural topics came to mind. One is, for example, like transgender, right? The idea that that is something new. And, you know, in one way, or we live in a society that offers rights to every citizen. So people who choose to go become transgender deserve the same rights. You and I have on another phase, a lot of other people that are nervous or intimidated by it are worried that it is going to create because it's uncertain. Right. It's something new. And then I thought about the civil rights era of the sixties.
There was a certain order, and that order a lot of Americans were comfortable with, a minority of Americans, primarily black Americans, were uncomfortable with it because they lived in chaos and uncertainty in a lot of areas of the country where they were, you know, open to be harmed and treated legally as second class citizens. So you had attention there. And again, the country kind of figured it out. Right? It's not. Not saying it was easy. But, but we got over that hump and allowed more equality to kind of, kind of fester. So it's interesting. And then the last one, which I know we joked privately, was like this, this, this canadian piece in the article about the, the assisted deaths, you know, when I told you in a private conversation about the service dogs, how service dogs have been legal and for people with physical disabilities, like blindness our whole lives, but somewhere in the last 1020 years, it became for people with emotional disability, you know, kind of the emotional distress, which is harder to just, just.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Because you want to, just because individual liberty. And that raises the whole, like, you have people out here with severe allergies. You know, I got a nephew. It's allergic to dogs. And it's like, well, hold on. Like, how, how is he supposed to.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: Get around and, or remember, I brought this up because I saw a lady with her dog in the produce section of the grocery store near my house and is sniffing all the food. And I own two dogs. I love my dogs. But again, I thought about how come you can't leave your dog in a car?
That's what I mean by allow people too much freedom. No, this is what happens is a lot of people will forget to think about their fellow man and say, well, maybe other people aren't comfortable with something like this and they kind of lose a certain etiquette.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: Well, the etiquette is a good way. That's a good word for it, because the individual liberty is not supposed to go overstep other people's individual liberty.
[00:24:34] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: And so essentially that person becomes, instead of being a person who's exercising their own individual liberty, not to the detriment of someone else, they then disregard other people's individual liberty for themselves. And so you end up in a situation like that. And that's why you have norms. That's why you have etiquette. A lot of times. That's why you have, quote unquote, political correctness where we all still have to be here. You know, there is a certain amount of liberty that we all can exercise. But once you exercise it too far, you are getting into where you encroach on other people's liberty. And so to me, I think my examples are a little, kind of a little more what you see in today's society. Like for like I said, libertarians are almost an extreme version of that liberalism. You know, so individual liberty above all. And so in their mind and in many people's minds, well, if you go to the core of liberalism, there's no social safety net. If somebody decides to spend all their money on blank, you fill in the blank and they don't have any food, then that person dies in the street, you know, now that as a society, that's not something that I want to be in a society that does that. You know, I want to be in a society that has some kind of safety net and compassion for people who do that. You don't have to be perfect, you know, like, you can make mistakes and the society can catch people to some degree. You know, like, obviously you can't save everybody, but there's at least mechanisms in place that we don't just let people go, you know, completely, like if, if there's a slip up. So I think there are definitely places where that goes. But I do actually think it's important to distinguish the conversation from liberalism that infringes other people's liberalism, liberalism that goes to the extent that it infringes others versus liberalism that just makes you uncomfortable because you like the existing order. I think those are two different things, and we have to be very careful separating those two. And, I mean, you brought up the trans thing. I think that there's an interesting example there that I find in looking at that situation. And again, I'm good with, I think everybody should have rights under society, equal protection of the law and so forth. And so it's interesting to me when I see efforts to deny trans people certain rights, particularly adults, certain rights, you know, consenting adults or adults in general have certain rights under society that they, then any trans person should have those rights as well. But my question oftentimes on a different issue, whether or not, if trans, can people compete in sports with a chosen gender, that's not necessarily their biological gender. Does that infringe on the liberty of other people, particularly with women's sports? Is that an issue where. Well, hold on.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: No, that's a fair question. And I think that's what we're in the process of the culture culturally.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: We're figuring that out now. But I think that it can't go to some extent where you're not even considering whether you're infringing on someone else's liberty in that sense. And so sometimes I think that needs to be added into that conversation.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: It's not a question of that's where the extremes meet each other, you know, because someone who's extreme, that's, that's saying that we shouldn't be concerned about the non transgender. Let's just go back into the women's sports thing. To make it specific, a natural born female competing with a male who's chosen to basically say, I identify as a female. I think someone who supports the trans rights but can't appreciate that dilemma is just as bad as someone who is saying, I don't think trans people should have any rights. Like, to me, they're both just as equal.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Well, they're both seeking to impose their view on everybody else.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Yeah, they're too rigid. And that's both. To me, it's the same thing in a sense.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: I don't necessarily equate the two, but I do think that, you know, you. I think I caution against going in that direction, basically, where you can't, where your analysis only looks at one side of the equation. You know, like, particularly in a situation like the women's sports is a good example, because if you want to do, like, go and look at Jim Crow laws, like those were created to oppress, you know, like, so we can look at those with a level of skepticism that I don't think you can look at women's sports with a level of skepticism. Women's sports wasn't created to keep men out. They were created to give women an opportunity. You know, like, you look at the world record holders and of the 100 meters dash or this or of that or anything like that, and all of those are, you know, if you. If you do it not by gender, then the men are on top of all of that. And so we created the women's stuff so that the women's had an opportunity and to do that stuff as well and to compete at the highest level. And so, you know, that wasn't created just, you know, to oppress, you know, like certain people. So I think that it doesn't necessarily deserve the same level of skepticism as you would look at something like Jim Crow. So. But I. Again, I think it's very important, and that's the point I wanted to make.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: This just burst my bubble. I was gonna hope that being a man could make me a victim, and I could see it. But now you're saying I can't.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: You. As we've covered many a times, you can always decide to be a victim. Many people. Many people do mean.
But I want to keep us moving, though.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Come on.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: But now, what do you think about the american system in this context? You know, and I mentioned earlier how, you know, kind of we have this. This liberal approach to a society with a conservative mechanisms of operation just to maintain another one is federalism. You know, like states, you know, can can kind of do certain things on their own. And then the federal government, like, we have all these different mechanisms to make it so that it's very difficult to have just sweeping change across the entire nation, you know? So do you think that this setup is one that helps tamp down on, on some of these concerns of liberalism potentially going too far and becoming persuasion.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: Or compulsion as opposed to, I mean, it's interesting, man. I think that definitely our nation is an ongoing experiment, and I think it's pretty cool to live through it. Right? I mean, I think, you know, everyone's always letting, unfortunately, they're kind of the media ecosystems and all that freak, freak them out. But the reality is that I think we've learned in this last kind of period that everything is fluid, right? Nothing, nothing is static. And that means rights are fluid in general. The country ebbs and flows, like we said. I mean, think about good stuff and.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: Bad stuff, you know?
[00:30:50] Speaker B: I know. That's what I'm saying. So think about it. The United States today is the oldest living, sorry, the oldest liberal governing institution in the world so far, and it's 250 years old. So, like, we've talked in other discussions that the majority of human history and human experience has not been in this type of society where from the top at least, the idea of freedom of the individual and freedom of, and if people have rights has been, you know, something most humans have.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: You go back a thousand years or 2000 years or 500 years or 1500 years or 3000 years, start talking about government of the people, by the people, and for them, they had to chop your head up.
[00:31:34] Speaker B: Well, think about it. Think about the idea of something like arranged marriages. I mean, that's so foreign to us in the United States. I mean, I've got a good friend of mine who's a pakistani descent, and I remember when we were in our twenties, his family was trying to get him to marry somebody from the same tribe in the same province of Pakistan, and it was going to be an arranged marriage. And it was just interesting as a someone like myself that's not from that culture, just as kind of be like, wow, man, they're trying to force you to do that. He's like, yeah, I'm not even interested. I don't even know who this person is. And the fact he lived here in the United States, you know, was just interesting.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: And so, but that's a real thing as well, though, because if he didn't have exposure to the liberty, so to speak, that in that context, individual liberty, then he might not have thought he might have not. He might have still been very opposed to it, but he might not have fought it in the same way. But once you're exposed to something different like that, then that something like that, it really creates a contrast, you know, that. You know, like, oh, wow, I don't even get to choose blank, you know, my spouse, you know, so to speak.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Well, and I. And I kind of was. Was just thought of a few things, like, you know, just thinking about, okay, since 1790, you know, kind of the founding of the country, kind of how have we evolved? And I thought, yeah, we had a civil war seven years after that, you know, which. Which, you know, if you want to talk about an authoritarian regime, I think slavery is probably the pinnacle. Right?
Yeah. Then you've got women's suffrage 50 years later.
We've got the Native Americans granted citizenship in 1924. I mean, that's a pretty big deal. The humans that occupied this land prior to Europeans coming were finally invited to experience the country and vote and participate in that way. And then fast forward to the mid to late sixties. You had the civil rights acts and all that. So if you look at the long arc of american history, even though, like you said earlier, it's. It's. It's not.
It's not unpainful. There haven't been fits and starts, but the Arc is bending towards inclusion. Right.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And, well, towards. Hey, towards liberty.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: Like, towards more liberty. You know, you have more people that. More categories of people that can vote. You know, you have more people with. With rights. You've moved equality, you know, to a. To more. To cover more people. Like, it's all stuff that would be considered towards a liberal bent. A liberal. Again, liberal as in liberalism bent.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Yeah, and a liberal philosophy. And that's why it's an interesting concept. And that's why one thing I wanted to share is because I find this fascinating. You know, our laws and kind of the constitution, our founding documents carried so much from british law. And also, let's talk about masonic law. You know, masonic lodges in middle aged Europe were the first areas of this. This attempt to bring equality and a liberal thought, which is why they were masonic lodges or threats to the monarchy and the Catholic Church, primarily. And so if you look at it.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: Now, tell me this is true. I mean, isn't it, like, in the masonic lodge, like, everybody is on equal footing with each other, so to speak, in terms of speaking. And, you know, all that.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And there's votes and would have been revolutionary. Like 400 constitution. There's elections and things like that. So, but one of the things I wanted to share this is because there was an event called the glorious revolution of 1688 in England. And this is when, basically the Puritans, Presbyterians, and Quakers teamed up and were calling for religious freedom. And it was basically a civil war within Europe. And so, remember, 100 years later, our founders are writing the documents that enshrine this nation. And so they knew that's why you talk about separation of religion from the state, because they saw this, what it did in Europe and all these fights and people wanting to be, remember this country first. The colonies were really occupied by religious refugees, people that were escaping their persecution, religious persecution in Europe. So what I found interesting about this period of 1688 is the revolution enshrined parliamentary sovereignty and the right of revolution. I found that fast as the first time in human history that a government allowed the people the right to revolt. Think about that.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: That's why it was.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Which is essentially, which is analogous. Or, you know, it's in comparison to, like, our right to free speech. You know, people confuse all the time thinking it's about, oh, I can say what I want and not get fired for my job, or I can say, like, no, no, no, the government won't lock you up for saying freedom of.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: Assembly and freedom to redress your government with grievances.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's all First Amendment.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: All in the First Amendment.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: And I think that. I think it's very interesting how the american system kind of wedded several concepts together, you know, from.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: It's really a beautiful thing, honestly.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: Like, how do you organize people?
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: And so, like, I look at how our liberal system has organically, in a sense, problem solved its way to certain social contracts, you know, whether it be education, public education is socialist, you know, and that's something that, you know, in the 18 hundreds. You know, it was like, hey, we kind of need to do this, you know, if we want to have our. We want to continue to grow our nation. Public police, public fire departments, those are all socialist things that we and our individual liberty have collectively decided that we want that stuff. You know, and, you know, it's all. So it's very interesting to me how we. And then again, I mentioned earlier about the social safety nets and stuff, all of these things where our society is or our setup is one that we're able to respond and react to challenges, to create things within the context of our government, to give up some of our individual liberty so that we can have. So we can, in those cases, bargain for it, the ultimate bargain is always, you weigh one side or the other is liberty versus security. And then we heard about all that post 911 world is that how much liberty do you give up in order to have a little more security and so forth? There's many warnings, you know, that people all the way back to Benjamin Franklin talk about, you know, as far as liberty versus security and so forth. And but all of those places are areas where our system has been able to adapt through the exercise of individual liberty to, in some ways, restrict. Ideally, it's done without manipulation and all that kind of stuff. But nonetheless, when we had the Great Depression, it's like, all right, we need a social safety net, you know, so we put that in place, you know, and, you know, when you have the wild, wild west and all that, people decide, hey, we need a sheriff or we need, you know, all that kind of stuff. So all of these things that are socialist constructs that wouldn't exist in a pure extremist type of thing, liberalism kind of standpoint that we've put in. So I think the system, I'm impressed with the system and that it has that adaptability. And then, as you pointed out earlier, all of the movement that's happened from a societal standpoint from 1792 or 1790, you know, going back 1790, 217 93 versus 2022, versus 2023, and it's still fluid. It's not like one thing we always keep in mind is that you don't just put your feet up and it's done. There's always forces pulling things in a liberal way or an illiberal way, and they may or may not come from where you think they're coming from. Sometimes it is what you think, but sometimes it isn't. But again, it's something that we got to know what it is, and we got to be able to act to preserve it, at least the ethos, because, again, we can decide collectively that we want to. Hey, we'll give up a little bit here, you know, because ultimately we have this greater good that we're trying to either protect or this greater bad that we're trying to prevent. So, you know, but I do think we can move to our second topic from here. You know, today is Juneteenth, you know, a recently knighted federal holiday in the United States, which, you know, celebrates the end, the end in of slavery and the freeing of the last slaves. And we wanted to have a conversation today, just a brief conversation in observance of Juneteenth, just on whether the concept of black history in itself, in light of America's history with slavery, with Jim Crow and all these different things, all the massacres and the riots to kill black people and all this kind of stuff, because we see so often people who profess to be anti woke going after the teaching of black history, you know, and so is it something that people might say, you know, Ron DeSantis, for example, says, oh, I'm not against black history, but he tends to try to take black history or prevent black history from being taught. And so we just wanted, you know, this should be something that is clear, you know, is black history itself just, you know, by default? Is black history something that is woke? What do you think, Tundaya?
[00:40:22] Speaker B: I don't know. I think I'd say this to answer you directly, that I would think the word woke on purpose is a catch all phrase that is on purpose ambiguous, so that the person who is blaming others for behaving that way can avoid being called and labeled, whether racist, bigoted, xenophobic, whatever it is. So I just think it's kind of like we just discussed in the first part that the word liberal or liberalism has become kind of a catch all in american culture, just like communists was in the sixties, right? So I think that the idea that, because, remember, they used to call people that wanted integration communists, you know, you deviated from the idea of an economic philosophy which, what communism is just that because you want something I don't like, therefore I label you this. And I think that's what essentially becomes.
[00:41:14] Speaker A: A symbol of disapproval. You know, like, right. I don't like this. So I'll just use whatever term people that I know.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: And that's a signal, right? What do you call it? A dog whistle so that people that are saying it, you know, can, you.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Know, other people listening that follow the same kind of mindset signal. And I don't like it.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: So, but, no, but speaking more, it's interesting, man, just with all the stuff we've talked about in our show over the years and just the kind of knowledge we have of history and even what we just talked about in the first section of today's show about just how much America has changed in the last 200 years, that's why I kind of look at this stuff and it's offensive, obviously, and it just, it's going to be another failed endeavor. And again, this is what I find amusing is that someone who says that he's about freedom and bringing freedom to, I guess, the governed people of his state, which are you and I, because we live here, is banning books and trying to. And basically it's such projection. He says he doesn't want his kids or Florida kids in school being indoctrinated with certain information.
But yet by withholding this information, you're.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: Allowing goes out of his way to control the information that, yeah, you're continuing.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: An indoctrination that we've seen since the southern, the lost cause, you know, over the last 150 years or so. And so, you know, I'll read one. To me that stuck out to me, is this, like, purposefully?
Because it's one thing, you know, you know, this can be controversial or that can be, but I'll quote the article here. DeSantis also cut 200,000 in funding for Florida's black music legacy, a project designed to highlight the state's contributions to black music. Like, I'm just thinking, like, who's offended by that? You know what I mean? That's because the way I look at it is I don't know if Florida had a big influence on maybe genres like the blues or jazz or country music, but that'd be cool to know. I'm a Floridian. I'd like to know that. And so who gets offended by this information? And the other thing is, and I'll pass it back here, is this has nothing to do with the budget because we actually are in a surplus. And we have $115 billion state budget that was unanimously decided and approved by both parties. And we're talking about cuts here like this, several hundreds of thousands of dollars and a few million here and there, which, again, isn't a huge part of the Florida budget. But they do have an impact at the ground level of not helping to support the teaching of this american history.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:55] Speaker A: No, for sure. And you quote the article. The article we're talking about is a piece from news one which talks about some funding cuts that DeSantis scientists made over top of, you know, basically striking out, unanimously decided stuff by the Florida legislature, which was interesting. You know, this stuff that the legislature decided was all good. A legislature that, you know, is a very right leaning legislature and controlled by Republicans. But to me, it really, the answer to the question of whether black history in itself is quote unquote, woke, it really depends on, and this is implicit in what you said, but it depends on how you define woke. You know, if woke is something that makes whites or white males or whoever your sample is, who don't want to think that white Americans ever did anything wrong, uncomfortable, then, yes, black history in many respects would be woke. And I think that presents an issue because essentially if you continue down an anti woke, quote unquote approach or take that approach and continue going down that pathway, ultimately you have to be against, like, I don't know, you can't allow someone to learn about Rosewood or you can't allow people to learn about Tulsa. You can't allow people to learn about that stuff because it will make you uncomfortable. And if, since it makes you uncomfortable, if you're that person, that hearing that someone, you know, white person in the past did something wrong, you're going to have to be. You're going to have to come out against that stuff. But that stuff is real history. It's stuff that is, a lot of times history is taught so that we can learn lessons from it and learn to avoid the negative things or to strive for things that work really well and you're going to miss those lessons. You're not going to be able to learn from the past. You're not going to be able to build a future that is knowledgeable about where we went right and where we went wrong in the past and become stronger from that. And so to me, it's such a self defeating approach to things. There are so many things as an american you could feel good about. But yes, there are some things as american, if you want to focus on, you can feel bad about. And so it says more about you. If you choose to focus on the things that you would feel bad about, like that the fact that they exist and you may have to hear about it doesn't mean that that needs to be your focus necessarily. So, to me, I kind of see through it, man. I see this, the anti woke stuff essentially as anti empathy stuff. Like, I don't want you, if someone who's anti woke doesn't want themselves or other people to be able to put themselves in anybody else's shoes.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Because that's the only thing you can really get to is like, I don't want. I want you to only be able to look at things through the perspective that you have and never be able to look at things to a perspective that's broader than your own because you can only look at things to a perspective that's broader than your own by learning about things, you know, that happened to other people, you know, so to speak.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: Well, then, I mean, as you're saying it, I think, oh, wow, that sounds pretty authoritarian, right? Like, don't look over there. You can't know this.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: You're not allowed to look over there.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: In fact, you're only, let me rip.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: The page out of the book.
[00:46:49] Speaker B: Yeah, and so, and so. But it's, it's fascinating. That's why it's fascinating to live through this, because, you know, you and I weren't alive in the last kind of cultural war of the sixties. So this is the first time that in our lifetime that we've lived under an elected official that has actively sought to attack information about our group. You know, that that is factual. And that's, again, part of the fabric of this country's history. And to your point, I would say this.
It's kind of a childish and immature actual mindset, like you're saying, of lacking empathy and all that. But I'll go a step further and say it's just like being an ostrich and putting your head in the sand. This would be like if, as black american people, we decided that we just wouldn't take in any information that involved sub saharan Africans being a part of the slave trade. Right. Like, we just wouldn't believe it at all. Like somehow these Europeans walked it 100 miles into inland and got a bunch of slaves and left you. We would be.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: By the way, there are some blacks that are made uncomfortable about that.
[00:47:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: You know, like, there are.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: But you know what? The reality.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: People who want real history to be taught have to say, no, no, this has to be learned. You know, black people, you need to know this.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: And that's the bigger take here, is people that want real history. Because once you start looking through all human history, every group has had its moment of being on top. And at the. Every group has. The same group has been at the bottom. I mean, there's great historic facts about the, I think through the 10th century, through the 13th century, 1.2 million Europeans were trafficked to the Middle east as slaves. So, I mean, this stuff has been going on a long time, but we take it so personal in our culture. And so again, what I'll say is, I'll end this is when I see behavior like this from someone like Governor DeSantis, and then he's allowed to get away with it. I'm asking myself, well, who is he performing to? How many Americans or how many Floridians at this point? I know he's running for president, so I say Americans. But at this point, floridians really find this great. And why should certain facts of history, like you said, the Rosewood massacre and those things be excluded?
[00:48:52] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I mean, it's. Yeah, there's no concern, obviously, for Native Americans feeling bad about their past. You know, that's taught in the books as well. I mean, I don't. I didn't, you know, like, from that standpoint, only thing I'll say is, I think it's dangerous to assume that he is performing for anyone.
I think we should begin to see that this is just who he is. This is what he stands for. You know, this is a person that I totally believe to ban books. You know, this is a person. And. And we can look at historical examples of politicians or leaders that wanted to do the kinds of things that he's doing, and we can see the direction that people like that like to go, but we got to stop looking at it like, oh, he doesn't really think this stuff. He's just doing it because he thinks some other people are.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: Like, he's a true believer. I agree.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: He's a person.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: Like, he's performing for somebody, though.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: He thinks, no, he could just be doing what he thinks is right. And this is. And this is what makes him dangerous in that sense. And the fact that people won't think that he's actually. He's just playing a hand or he's just playing politics makes it dangerous, because they'll excuse these things. When he shows you that he's anti business by attacking, retaliating against Disney and wasting the state's money to do so, then you got to believe it. When he shows you that he is against freedom of speech, that he's against things that involve, that he wants to put a muzzle on society, you got to believe him. You know, you got to believe that that's who he is and not try to see, not try to project onto him. Oh, he's just doing this for politics. But I think we can close this up from here, man. It's something, though, as our society. Like, ultimately, the point that I think should not be overlooked here is that I think we can end up in a situation that DeSantis, Ron DeSantis would try to ban the teaching of Juneteenth, which is the federal holiday, everyone, today. So he's gonna start banning federal holidays, you know, so ultimately, because if. Well, why is that an important date? And then you start getting all these questions that clearly he thinks needs to be muzzled in our society and should not be able to be talked about. Educators should not be able to talk about. So that's who he is, and we need to believe him when he shows us that. But, yeah, we appreciate, everybody, for joining us on this episode of call. Like, I see it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review us, tell us what you think. Send it to a friend. Until next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: I'm Tundell Gona.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
