Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss the public reaction to the shooting of the United Healthcare CEO and also the alleged shooter and the parasitic healthcare system that seems to have at least played a role in leading to the shooting and also, let's say, the mixed public reaction to it. And later on, we'll weigh in on the new gender policy that was recently adopted by the LPGA and the USGA and figure out if that's something, if they're something moving in the right direction or something that may be creating something. A lot of unintended consequences.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man who's usually quite pleasant, but when it comes to podcasting is a bad man. Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde. You ready to show him your wicked side?
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Of course. Every day.
Except when I'm pleasant.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Except when you're pleasant. Yeah, exactly. All right, now before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and like on YouTube or your podcast app, doing so really helps the show out.
Now recording. On December 10, 2024, and last week, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot and killed in New York City. On the street and at the scene, the words deny, defend and deposed were found on bullet shell casings, which with those words known to relate to how insurance companies kind of go about denying insurance claims. It kind of tied this to, almost immediately to the idea that this murder of this healthcare CEO, healthcare insurance company CEO, was related to his job and his company and so forth and how they operate and dissatisfaction with that. As of this recording, Luigi man man has been arrested for the shooting.
And he, you know, we're. So we're learning more about him. But an additional interesting point on this story was that people's response to the. This public murder was not all like shocked or being appalled or anything like that. There was that, but many were appearing to, to to not be too upset about it or even express some sentiment that maybe he had it coming to him or celebratory, you know, and so, and that's again, there's a wide spectrum of this. When I'm not trying to paint any particular person or group of people as all being callous to murder, but it just was being seen out there in people's sentiment. And, you know, this is maybe due to, you know, generally their, their sentiment on the healthcare industry as it exists in the United States or the United Healthcare or anything. We don't know, you know, for individuals. But it was definitely out there. So to get us started, Tunde, I want to get your thoughts, you know, kind of on the shooting, you know, itself, but also the mixed, let's say, reaction to the shooting and, you know, what was, again, a public murder.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah, this is one of those interesting, I think, cultural moments that we see every generation or so where this will be remembered, I think, you know, years to come. Like you're saying the public reaction has surprised many and hasn't surprised many, you know, and I know we'll get into the kind of whys of that. I will say, to lighten the mood here, this is a serious topic that I was impressed when I saw that the alleged, you know, the accused shooter's name is Luigi. Because as a guy who grew up in the 1980s playing Super Mario Brothers and who loves Italian food, I have a soft spot for that name. So getting that out of the way.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Did not think you were going to go. You were going to start there.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: I was going to go there, but I told you. Well, you introduced me as Wicked, so I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go with that. So we'll just. We'll just say kind things about the name Luigi. Maybe not this gentleman we can be so kind to because he's a murderer. But alleged. Alleged.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Alleged, yeah.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Okay. But the name Luigi does have a soft spot for those reasons for me.
So. But no, on a serious note, yeah, this is. That's why I said I think this is going to be interesting as we move forward. You know, this. As of this recording, this gentleman was arrested in the last 24 hours. And I'm sure we could turn on the TV right now and see more information coming out. So we're going to learn a lot more. But I think we know enough already that we can have this conversation, which to me is very interesting about our society, because I think what this represents and the more the reaction, I mean, unfortunately, this guy murdered somebody.
And the healthcare CEO, no matter what they think of him, he was a husband, he was a father. So I think, you know, we need to recognize that this is serious in that way, and unfortunate that a life was lost. But that's what I mean, the reaction of the public is something that I think we should all take take notice of because this doesn't seem like a normal reaction that we would see otherwise if someone gunned someone down in a busy street with a silencer looking like, you know, assassination style. So, yeah, that's why I think that this is going to bring up some interesting conversations about Health care, the role of health care in our society, the role of government as relates to health care and the people, the role of profit, the role of capitalism, the role of AI. All these things that have been swimming around our cultural conversations. This, this, this event seems to have kind of captured it all in, in one. So for that I think we're going to have some interesting conversations as a culture going forward.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: No, I agree. And I mean to me the, I think you start with the reaction. I mean the, the shooting like again this is guy is a, as a human being is, you know, you know you said probably a father, things like that. So you don't want to. From my standpoint, you know, like where I come from, I don't look at the like, oh, it's good that this person, that something happened to this person. One, because that's not the type of society that I think we're trying to build here. And two, because the system is much bigger than this guy. So if you're trying to take a shot at the healthcare system going and taking this guy out, there's just going to be next guy to come in. Oh yeah, you want this guy's 50 million dollar salary or pay package? Sure. Somebody else will take that and continue. The wheels are going to keep turning right on. So it's very ineffective as well. You know, it's not. If you take this guy out, it's not like oh well, healthcare industry is going to get their act together and start treating people more fairly. No, that's not going to happen. Anyway, so the, the idea that, oh he had it coming and so forth like that, I don't think he had this coming. Like there are, we should have discussions about, you know, the way that the healthcare industry to extract so much value from you know, like monetarily and provides so little value. Like why does an industry like that make so much money for just moving money around? You know, we, we should really be asking those questions. But that this guy gets to the point where he's going to take somebody's life because of it, that the public, by and large, you know, if you're looking at a cross section of the public is there are some people that are okay with that or that you know, are kind of like, oh, you know, it's kind of again, had it come and had that sentiment. It's surprising to me in a sense not because I'm not surprised that like I think the health. Again I think the healthcare industry or the healthcare insurance agency, the private healthcare is parasitic. I think it's It's a, it's a bad setup and I will talk about that later, but I like use my voice and my vote to try to address that a little bit. And maybe we should do more organizing. But this doesn't seem to be an issue that motivates people from a voting standpoint, at least in large part, or from a collective standpoint. Hey, let's organize. Like, the role of government, by and large, for issues like this are to make changes that individual people can't make. When you have a government like ours, a government of the people, supposedly of the people, by the people, for the people. So if enough of us think that the healthcare industry is a scam, then what we're supposed to do is get together collectively and put people in power who will address that. Whereas on the. It seems to me that many people might think that this is a scam, but either are so easily distracted with culture war stuff or anything like that, or it's just not a big enough priority for them that they're willing to even look at that. Like politicians. The way, you know this, politicians don't even really talk about this that much because they don't think it's going to move people in a way that is, you know, is going to. Like the politicians who would stand up for you on this, you know, like the Bernie Sanders of the world, like, he talks about it. It's not like you got a bunch of people following him because anytime anybody follows him on that, the blowback is so swift that, you know, at that point we don't hate the health insurers that much, you know, so it's just, it's really misplaced to me. Like, it's like people just kind of want to. It's. I guess it's. People want to be a mo. This is an emotional reaction, like, hey, yeah, screw them or screw that or whatever. But they don't want to do anything about it. They're fine getting abused, but with the abuser gets popped up the head, upside the head, they're happy about it. And I'm like, well, yo, why don't we stop being abused? We have the tool to do that if we choose to use it.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's where I agree with you. I thought this similar thing just watching all this, which is this is really a reflection of us, the voter in America because we allow ourselves to be pushed around with these different messages and memes. I'm sorry, but I kept thinking about the Haitians eating pets from a few months ago and about the conversations, the hysteria we've had in this country around things like immigration, you know, in hysteria about the inflation we recently had, which, again, I get it, those things are real. But think about how much that dominated the headlines, the news, the way people have arguments in their families about these topics. And like you said, and that's what I mean, this is an interesting cultural moment.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Because I mean that you could say transgender, like, yeah, any of these topics. And like, yeah, like, this is. This apparently means more to people right now, at least than that stuff.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: But I said this is interesting.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: 99% of the time. It doesn't.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah, because this one incident has brought out all of this emotion, and rightfully so. You know, all the people writing on the social media about their experiences, negative experiences with the health care carriers there. You know, we've had the regular. I would say, kind of negative influencers online who try and make this into a political thing. And, oh, it's just this group of people that do this partisan thing. Yeah, partisan. And what happens is, for the first time that I've seen in a long time, their own fans, you know, the people who are generally fans of these commentators have been attacking the commentators now because they're saying, no, this isn't partisan. Everybody's feeling this healthcare thing, and it sucks. So that's. To me, I started thinking about that, too, in recent days. Like, well, it's interesting. No one's, like, going and storming a capital over healthcare. You know, they're not. They're not doing these emotional reactions over something. And the sad part is, again, this is on us, Americans. We allow it. Because I thought about this, James. I was thinking about all this because I first started thinking about the Haitians eating pets and how effective that was, and that we don't have the same kind of ability to message a narrative about getting better health insurance.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: You're getting all these people screwed over by the health insurance company.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Like, all of y'all getting motivated that. Yeah, motivated that quickly. Like how quickly people believe that Haitians eat pets. And so I was thinking about how we don't talk about the aftermath, too. We just had an election literally one month and five days ago. We're December 10th today. And I just thought about it after I thought about the Hastings and Peds. No one's talking about that town, apparently in Aurora, Colorado, that was being taken over by illegal aliens. You know, the apartment. All of a sudden, all that goes away. It's not on the cable news anymore. I don't see it online anymore. And that's what I mean. Like, we as Americans, as the public need to do a better job of not allowing ourselves emotionally to get kind of pushed in all these off ramps all the time so we can stay focused on things that really matter long term. That we all seem to collectively agree on that.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Like, and also that we all seemingly care about. Like, again, I don't even think, and I know our examples in this instance were more partisan, but I don't think it's a partisan issue. Like, I think that we, whatever party, you and you talk about this sometimes. Like, no, it could be Israel and.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Gaza, could be climate change. You're right, it's. Well, what I was gonna say is.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: We need, if people who are in either party, we need them to get BET to support better politicians in their own party. Like, there's no reason why, and it shouldn't be that one party's to try to make healthcare better for people and the other is trying to make it more profitable for companies. That's not something that's not in a reality that we're forced on. You know, that's because voters in each party are either accepting or supporting politicians with that message. But this isn't, this is the type of issue that if voters on one side of the aisle say, look, we're only going to support politicians that favor trying to make the health care system more fair to people, and then voters on the other side say the same thing, you know, those politicians will start dancing to a different tune. Right now, it's the healthcare companies and healthcare insurers primarily that give them, that donate to them so much and give them so much money that that's, that's who they serve. That's who's on both sides. Both sides of the aisle you have a preponderance of people who are, of politicians who serve the interests of the healthcare insurers, because that's who's buttering their bread. And so again, I just thought that people didn't care about it that much because they were like, again, they were more worried about all these other things. And now seeing, okay, now everybody cares about this before, I'm just surprised. Like, I guess I'm calling, you know, saying that a lot of the people that are upset right now are full of is kind of what I feel like, because it's like, yo, get out of here. Like, you're just happy to see this, you know, whatever, but you don't really care about this. You know, you care about other stuff much more. Because again, this isn't Even trying to say this should be partisan. You support one party for healthcare and other. I'm saying if Everybody, if the 99.9% think we should have better healthcare, then we're all fools for not having it, because that means that we should have both parties trying to dance to that.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And I agree. And I think that it's evident in when you look at, you know, number one, because I want to get into what we're talking about, about the people, all of us American citizens who vote and put these people in power, and then we can talk about the system itself. And so I agree with you because I feel like messaging is so important. And again, we're fresh off of a presidential election. And I remember two, three weeks after the election seeing kind of the different way that people responded to polls and all that. And a lot of people after the election believed that they were voting to repeal Obamacare, but not the Affordable Care Act. Right. And it's just.
And what I'm saying is, on a serious note, I just thought, you know, at the end of the day, I don't want to call people stupid and dumb and all that. Meaning we have to take a responsibility as individuals to read at some point, certain, you know, and just try and get your own information without constantly being told by a social media bot or some politician. Like you said, that's just trying to sway you in a direction because they're getting donations from some healthcare lobby and because people were upset. What I saw online learning that the Affordable Care act is Obamacare.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So to your point, it's not an issue of intelligence. You don't have to say they're smart or dumb. They're just dupes.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: That's what I mean.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: You can be smart and get duped, you can be dumb and get duped, but they're just dupes.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: And they're most likely going to go and continue supporting the politicians that duped them. And that's what I'm saying to your point, like, so to them, yeah. Worrying about a young man swimming in a swim meet with a bunch of girls in a high school, which, I mean, that does deserve.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: We're going to talk about that next.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: That does deserve a conversation. But seeing the reaction to the killing of the CEO from United Healthcare does tell us that there's a lot going on of unhappiness below the surface in the American culture, but we're just not addressing it. We're leaking out our emotion like a pressure valve into these other areas that are traditionally what we all have Learned about kind of human societies in history. Divide and conquer, right? The oligarch class does not want us to deal with health care because there's a lot of frigging money being made. And shareholders.
Yeah, a small group of people, like you said it very well, someone else is going to get this guy's $50 million pay package. And unfortunately, you know what they're going to do? They're not going to go into United Healthcare and say, how can we help people get better? You know, how can we get better and lower our denial of claims and help patients and all that. No, they're going to hire a security firm and pay them a million dollars a year to have two retired Navy SEALs walking with the guy every day and make sure he doesn't get shot. That's.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Or maybe they got to boost the guy's pay package because now he's a physical threat. Like, pay him 100 million, CEO more money because.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: 100 million and raise all of our premiums to do it. So. Yeah.
And more claims.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: So, yeah, I mean, like, the thing I'll say, and I'm frustrated about this. I mean, I don't know if you're coming through, but, like, the thing is, is that if we're. If we're in a sit. If we're in, like, a government, like just a straight autocracy, if we're in Venezuel, then it's like, yeah, you know, like, maybe this type of vigilante violence is kind of your only hope. You know what I'm saying? But here we have the tools to try to address this. You know, we have the tools. We have the ability to do it. If we lock in for. Give us five minutes, lock in, we have the tools to try to address it. You know, and as long as we don't just get distracted by some big shiny object that somebody flashes in front of us, and we have the tools to address it. And so this isn't the tool to address it effectively, you know, and so, like, I just think that if we're going to be serious about this, and again, like I said, I just didn't think people were that serious about it. And I'm surprised that, you know, people are apparently serious or appear to be serious when, at least when there's emotional connection, then if we're going to be serious about it, we have the tools. Let's use those tools. And so. But I do want to get to the health care discussion more generally. Like, I mean, and there are some people that are saying, you know, they blame capitalism for this or they blame private insurance companies. You know, kind of just the setup and saying all our setup, they kind of, it was never. We don't have a system that was set up with people thinking, hey, what's the best way to do it? It kind of just evolved. And we'll have something in the show notes on this. It kind of evolved over time, you know, in the 19 or the 20th century. Just kind of evolved as, okay, patchwork here, patchwork there. We'll fix this with that. And then so we have a very inefficient system because generally speaking, when you just stack solutions on top of solutions and nobody ever takes a look at the big picture, you end up with that's something that may function but doesn't function well. Like, imagine trying to build a car like that. Like, oh, we're not going to design it in advance. We're just going to kind of put, start putting things together and then address whatever problem they're building up.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Plane while you fly, right? That's basically it.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: So drop me off a hot air balloon, I'm going to build this thing and let's see if I don't hit the ground.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: Let's see. Yeah, let's see if we can keep it in.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Most of the time you're going to hit the ground.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but you had mentioned, you know, like, in terms of like one of the things that's come up already now is that this CEO apparently had, was. Was in favor of, or it was, was behind the introduction of an AI system that denied 90 plus percent of claims. And again, that means no human was looking at it. Just AI kind of set up to deny things. And so do you think from a healthcare standpoint there are things that are reasonably attainable? Like, yes, we can try to put politicians in power that will look for solutions and try to implement solutions or ways to make it better, make it a better experience for people, make it less something where it's like we pay all this money and then we probably, when we need it, it won't come through for us. Which is kind of the construct of insurance as supposed. You pay the money in advance and then if you need it, it comes through. So that's not, it's not working, you know, right now. So do you think there are, do you think we have fundamental problems that won't let us solve it or that there are some things that maybe we can and should be doing to look at and you know, like, I'm trying to open it up broadly for you?
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, look, there's a lot we can look at. There's other countries we can emulate. I lived in one, I lived in Australia for almost five years, had a full single payer system and they had private health insurance as well and it worked out fine. And they have a lower mortality rates than us. They generally are better health, lower obesity, all that stuff than Americans and they.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: Spend less and they spend less.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: And so that's all I'm saying is like, is like it, it. There's other models we can choose to follow. We can also, we're smart people as Americans, we've done a lot. So I'm sure we could also reinvent the wheel ourselves and, and figure it out. I think you say a lot there that I think, you know, each one can be unpacked somewhat and I know this is a complex issue, so we can't cover everything in this discussion. But for example, you said something about a patchwork of things through the 20th century and that's true when you look at things, HMOs, PPOs, I mean all these different complexities that, that all, you know, began decades ago and then sprouted their own different branches and you know, it's just a big mess now. The other thing that is interesting to break down is if you look at the way that healthcare is delivered in this country, about 40% right now is government spend directly. And that would be the big ones, Medicare and Medicaid and then military. We got almost 3 million active duty and we got millions of veterans. So one thing I've never heard most, or I shouldn't say never, everyone has a time that they feel they can complain about something, but generally the va, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid have run pretty smoothly. I know there was issues with the Walter Reed Hospital, with the va. I know people can point out certain things, but generally you're talking giving health care to millions of people is generally worked out well for most people in those programs. Now we have then another 6% roughly of the population who get Affordable Care act subsidies. So that's a subsidy to health insurance from the government. So that's around 46%. We can round that up and say half of Americans roughly already get their government paid directly or subsidized by the government. And so the other half are people like you and I that have private insurance. So I think this is all part of this conversation.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: A lot of them, the vast majority of them actually not like, not like me now because we have our own businesses, but like the people who get.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: It through private employees for the, for the private sector. So, yeah, and that's what I'm saying. So we're, we're having this converse, like you're saying about, you know, building the plane while it's, while it's flying or building the car while it's going. We're trying to have these conversations, building.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: It just one piece at a time without any plan for how to make it work. Well, you know, like. So that's what I'm saying, in my opinion.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: But we're not having that open conversation to even like really have a national conversation about what are we doing now. That's what I mean, like, most people wouldn't even understand that or just don't know that almost half of the spend on health care already comes from the government. If you look at, I was looking at some stats that we can share and I know we'll be.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Well, that's direct government too, because remember, even through the health insurers, the government is paying some of those.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: That's what I was going to say. In 2021, United Healthcare's revenue, 77% of it came from the government. And I think that's one of the big open secrets with a lot of this, this wealth class is that a lot of them come. You know, a lot of money is made from kind of sucking on the teat of the U.S. treasury. And, you know, whether it's Tesla, SpaceX, Amazon's defense contracts, all that kind of stuff. Lockheed Martin's CEOs and executives are making all their money just on defense. Right. And selling military equipment to local municipalities. So we are okay with having private contractors do business with the federal government. But at some point we've also made decisions that would like, the Defense Department is a great example. The Defense Department is still run by civilians, elected officials, things like that, that contract out with military defense contractors to produce planes and weapons and tanks.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: And then they pay them directly. Like. So you're not in favor of. Let's create a defense insurance company that the government pays the defense insurance company. They take 20% off the top and then those people pay Boeing or Lockheed Martin or whatever. You don't want to do that.
That's the health care insurance model.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: So let me just jump in.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Well, let me just finish this here. The. At least in defense, they have to do what's called the rfp, right. They have to bid for a contract, but there's no, like, bidding process in this health insurance stuff. They just charge the federal government and the federal government pays it. So it's, it's, you know, it's not the same as other.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: And then they lobby the federal government to make sure that the government doesn't do.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. It's not.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Doesn't use their purchasing power to lower the amount of the payment.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah, Special relationship with the government.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: I think it's by design that there has been no conversation about this because there's no way to defend the current setup. And I made that joke about the defense insurer because there's just no way to. Like when you have these. First you gotta look at, okay, what are the parties here? You have the insured or the person who's receiving treatment, so to speak. You have the healthcare provider. So that's the doctor or the hospital or whatever. So that's a direct interaction. Right. And so. But what we've done is we've put in the middle somebody to take the money from the person who's getting service and then give that money to the person who's providing service. So there's this intermediary that's the health insurer. Right. Well, it's one thing if that person's taking. Okay, yeah, we're doing, we're, we're doing this money moving. We're moving money from here to there. We're pooling this money and then putting in, you know, we're going to do that. It's one thing if they're taking, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4% off the top. I think Medicare historically operates with like a 3% overhead for doing that type of thing, taking your Medicare taxes and then paying providers, you know, with, you know, with the money that it's pooling there. So they, and they take about a 3%, you know, to kind of pay all the staff and all that kind of stuff. These health insurance companies will run like 20% overhead. They'll take off the top, you know, and it's like. So, hold on, they're collecting all these premiums and everything like that, putting 20%, and then they're taking that for themselves, which is how you pay a CEO 50 million or 100 million a year, you know, these pay packages or whatever, and then the 80% will go to the provider. So. But the health insurer is not doing anything but taking in and paying out money. They're just moving money. So we have this situation basically where it is the most inefficient way to do it possible. Like, we couldn't design a more inefficient way to do it. And the reason why nobody wants to have or people aren't having that conversation is because the inefficiency is profitable for someone. And that someone is then lobbying the government. They're becoming a counterweight to say, oh, we don't want to change this. We don't even want to talk about it. So this is what I mean. Like, we have the tools to overcome that as individuals in this country, a lot of countries, you don't have the tools to overcome that. When you know, like that you got these setups with the oligarchy and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. These people are just all had their hands in the pocket of the treasury, the U.S. treasury or the government treasury, and that's it. So our setup is fundamentally designed to maximize profit for the middleman who does nothing. It doesn't actually maximize profit for the healthcare provider either. A lot of them struggle and so forth. So on both sides, the people that are real, that need the care and that are doing the care struggle. And the people in the middle who are just moving money back and forth are living like fat cats. So our system is designed in the most inefficient way. And I think what we have to come to grips with is that while we, in some areas, we've already understood that kind of the capitalist approach is not the right approach. And I believe in capitalism. I think capitalism is a great tool to have in your bag to drive efficiency, to drive innovation and all those things. But it's not for everything. Like, I wouldn't want. I wouldn't want a capitalist police department or a capitalist fire department. I just wouldn't. Don't think that could be a good idea in terms of the incentives that we want the police department to have or the fire department to have. Don't align with the type of incentives that capitalism is really good at. The incentive structure. Capitalism is really good at fostering. I think health insurance is the same thing.
Their incentives as of right now, based on, with a capitalist structure is to take as much premium in as they can and to pay out as little in claims. That's their incentive. That's how they increase profits. They don't increase in profits by being better at providing care because they're not providing care. All they're doing is moving money from one place to another. So the way they increase their profit is skimming more off the top as they're moving the money. So the setup just doesn't. Really isn't one that fosters a effective approach to paying for the healthcare. And so ultimately, until we come to grips with that, I mean, we're just going to be, we're going to be chasing our own tail.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting because I want to give some of the economic stats because I think it's good. But as you said that, it made me realize this is what I mean by. And I'm glad you said that in that way by we as Americans need to get past our ability to be constantly manipulated by politicians and the oligarchs, you know, the people that own the cable news networks and all that. My point is, because what's the alternative to this? Like I mentioned about me living in Australia for years, every time someone brings up an alternative to the current system, what is the first thing that they get knocked back and the public buys into this. They're socialists. Remember, Sarah Palin was about death panels. And that got into the whole thing that, you know that. And then here's the thing, though, because I have a health insurance license in the state of Florida prior to the Affordable Care Act, I remember learning when I took my exam that an insurance company could just totally kick you off of coverage once they've spent $1 million on your care.
So people on life support, on other things where it costs a lot of money to sit in the hospital on a bunch of machines every day, you know, maybe after 12 months or a year, they've already spent a million dollars and that's when they can tell the hospital we're no longer paying for this person.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: And just to jump in real quick. Yeah. Understand in our current setup with, you know, again, what would the incentive of the insurance company be? That at that point, would the incentive be to continue to pay because this person might have been paying premiums for such a long time. No, their incentive is to cut them off. Like, so we set ourselves again, we're set up for failure there if you want actual coverage.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: But what I'm saying is, in the end, it's kind of the same thing as a death panel. But again, Sarah Palin wasn't private death panel. That's what I mean. But she think about the importance of language, about us being manipulated. She wasn't using that to talk about the private health care system. She was using it as a way to scare people about. If we were to have a public option, you'd have these bureaucrats making decision. Well, what's the difference between a bureaucrat and a government? A bureaucrat at a big company like United that has 440,000 employees, that's like a small country.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: One of them gets more money in their own pocket by cutting you off and the other one's getting the same salary either way.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: So I would much rather.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: Yeah, well.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: And the other is accountable to the people through the voters. Right. Because if the government, you know, people can, we can't. We're not all shareholders of United, so we don't, we have a much more difficult time. And this is when you see, unfortunately, the way some people want to carry out this vigilante justice as a way for that they feel is the way to solve it. Obviously, we're not advocating that, but. So that's, that's kind of what he made me realize. I was like, yeah, this is why we need to be better as Americans and sip through some of this.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: We get the government we deserve, you know. But yeah, go ahead, final point, because I want to wrap up.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: But the final point is. No, I just looked up the stats. So our GDP as the most recent number is 27 trillion. As of 2023, 16% of the GDP was spent on health care in the United States. So I did the Math, that's around 4.32 trillion. And what I, my concern is, this is what I'm going to finish with is again, as Americans, because of our frustrations and the way that we are constantly being manipulated by our own leaders, we have just elected a new administration that has already told us that the incoming president, in a debate told us he has concepts of a plan to deal with health care.
And this, like we're saying, seems to have struck a nerve in the American people, the American psyche, this whole healthcare topic now. And so what I think we should all be prepared for is that this may not get any better in the short run because not only do we have an incoming group of people that have already told us they want to dismantle whatever we have now and haven't given us a plan of how they're going to replace it. We also now have a cabinet that's being staffed with billionaires, including potentially the world's richest man, to be over seeing that $4.3 trillion of our economy. And they're supposed to be, quote, unquote, cutting waste. So I just think that we all.
[00:33:19] Speaker A: Need to be, remember, this is. But this is somebody who also gets a lot of money from the government too. And he's in charge of how the government spends money.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: So a lot of self deal. But that's what I'm saying is we need to be prepared as Americans that this is probably not going to get better any. And what are we going to do about it? That's really where I am.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: I mean that's the biggest question. So, and I'll just say this, you know, kind of to end it like. And you, you're right, you know, like when, when people talk about trying to try other ways to fix this, this issue that again people apparently care about now, you know, or are just expressing that they care about, they are like, oh, the socialists this and that. And I always find that bizarre and I just want to like kind of end with this. Like if someone says that they're going to build some, they're going to repave roads or fix the roads. Do you ever hear a socialist outcry like, oh, this was a socialist. They're trying to fix the roads, they're trying to build new bridges or you know, whatever. Like no, we don't hear that. Oh, we're going to fund the police departments. Oh, socialists. No, we don't hear the socialists thrown out. If somebody says they want to fund the police departments or anything like that, nobody looks at the people who are saying defund the police. Which for the record, I don't think defund the police was a legit good idea. But in any event, nobody looks at the defund police people and say, oh yeah, those are free market people. Or you know, like those are antisocialists, like they're capitalists. It's all to the manipulation. You know, like socialists. We do things collectively sometimes when we think that's the best way to do it, roads or police or anything like that. And then we do things using market and capitalist principles when we think that's the best way to do it, like cars or computers and stuff like that, like these are tools for us to use. And if we don't understand that, if we just think, if we, if, if I can just throw out a word and then all of a sudden you're against whatever somebody's talking about, then you're, you're one of the dupes. You're one of the ones that, you're the mark. I mean people are looking at you like, oh yeah, we, anything we want to do, I can self deal. And if that person asks any questions, I'll just throw out this word. And you're like Pavlov's dog, you know, like, oh yeah, throw out that word. And this person is just like oh yeah, screw that, you know, and so, so to speak. So I mean we the people have to do better because again, you get the democracy and In a democracy, you get the government you deserve, you know, and so if we're, yeah, if we, if we just respond to buzzwords and that's it, then, yeah, we're gonna be as a group because, you know, we're only as strong as our weakest links as a group. We're gonna be the ones chasing our tail while they, these guys are running to the bank. And then this vigilante stuff, you know, it again, there's gonna be another guy. There's 10 guys waiting to take that job. So it's not gonna, it doesn't do anything. So.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: But don't forget Haitians. Haitians eating pets feels good. So that's, you know, that's.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's. I'm sure that'll fix the healthcare.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: All this healthcare stuff's boring. I just rather just talk about, you know, the other tribe being worse than mine.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: It's Bo. Somebody gets shot, apparently, you know, so. But no, I mean, it's, it's. But Leo, let's wrap the show from there. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call. Like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast. Check out the second part also. And yeah, subscribe. I'm James.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: I'm Tunde.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: And we'll talk to you soon.
All right, for our second topic today, we wanted to take a look the LPGA, which is women's professional golf. And then also the USGA U.S. golf Association. Their, you know, the Gulf Administrating body. They announced gender policy updates recently. And essentially the, the long and the short of it is, is that you must for to compete in women's divisions, you have to either be assigned female at birth or have transitioned to a female before going through male puberty. You know, and so this has created, I wouldn't say too much of an uproar, but people have taken note. This is a definitive statement in terms of, okay, here are as an objective rule that we're going to try to look at and so forth. So wanted to get your reaction on this. I mean, this is an issue that people are trying to figure out. Well, presumably either trying to figure out how we can do stuff that's fair for people, or I guess some people just want to be mean, but other people, like, are trying to legitimately figure out how can we be fair to everybody? And so what do you think of the attempt of the Gulf governing bodies right here that we have to try to try to create a workable system?
[00:37:21] Speaker B: No, this is an interesting topic because I think this shows that from a Cultural level, this transgender topic, which is new to our society generally, is beginning to evolve. And like you said about kind of, you know, this, this example is the LPGA specifically. But it's like, okay, now we're going to have that patchwork of different parts of our culture and our society here, being a golf organization and the sports world trying to, like you said, account for how to be fair to everybody. Right? You know, just people want to be fair to people with transgender and allow them to compete, but also be fair to the cisgender athletes and not have some sort of unfair competition, you know, with one of the members being maybe having some advantages with extra testosterone or whatever the case is. And I think that, you know, this to me seems like a fair way to try and trying, like you said, without being mean and without, you know, without still trying to have an open mind type of attitude, but saying, hey, we do need to have some guardrails on how we select people to compete in this sport. And, and what does that mean? So again, it's, it's, it's. I think what. One thing that I was glad to see, and just before I hand it back, I will just quote from the article that we're, we're. We're using here as a backdrop. It says, quote, a working group comprising experts in medicine, science, sports physiology, golf performance and gender policy law determined that effects of male puberty confer competitive advantages in golfer performance compared to players who have not undergone male puberty. That to me was like, okay, they actually had a good group of well rounded people that seem professionally to have been in the type of place where you'd want people looking at this stuff versus traditionally in our discourse about this topic and many other topics. But this one, for this discussion, who do we normally hear from? We hear from talk show hosts and politicians who generally aren't experts in golf performance, sports psych, physiology and medicine and.
[00:39:38] Speaker A: Science, and people whose incentives are to get as much attention as possible.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. That's what I mean. Like, that's what I meant by this is kind of like the evolution of it. Because it's like, okay, now we got serious. People are looking at this stuff and saying, okay, how can we really do this? And that's what I mean. So to me, it's more like, all right, we're now maybe past the shock stage that this exists, and now we finally have more grown up people saying, okay, this exists is not going away. Now let's try and put a kind of framework together of maybe how both trans people can be assimilated and feel that they're part of society, but also that everyone else doesn't feel like they're somehow being allowed to get some unfair advantage that everyone else doesn't. And, you know.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Welcome to affirmative action.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. That's one of those people throw that out there.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: That show.
[00:40:32] Speaker A: Yeah, but no, I think that you're correct. I mean, in the sense that this is trying to establish something objective that addresses the wants of, you know, let's say, trans athletes that want to compete in the women's division versus also trying to be fair to the women that are in the women's division already. The, I guess the cisgender women, the women who assigned at birth that were. That are in that women's division already. And I always, when I look at these things, I always go back to the idea of, like, why did we create. Why did society create women's sports? And a lot of times, if we. If we don't, we might think of what's happening with these disputes over trans participation in women's sports. We might think of that as analogous to maybe segregation or the color line in baseball. Like, well, why did they create, you know, why did they stop, you know, blacks from competing in the Major League Baseball and then they had to create a Negro league? Well, why did that happen? And when you look at that, it's like, okay, well, that was discriminatory. The goal was the whites only was expressly to keep blacks out. You know, like, that's why it was created. I don't think we have an analogy here in this situation where, like, the people who created and, you know, propagated women's divisions in these sports, the goal at the time was not, let's keep trans people out. Like that. That wasn't part of the discussion. The goal was, or the purpose was that women are at a disadvantage growing. Once you get a certain age, women are at a disadvantage competing in men's sports. If you're looking at. If you look at the high end, you know, the women's world records for track and for any. Any sports, swimming, all that stuff, are lower or I guess are less or they're like. I mean, lower, higher. I mean, the time is higher.
It's a slower time. The women's 100 record, basically, they would.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: Be beat by men in most physical activities if they had to compete.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Exactly. At the high end. No, that's at the high end. It's like, oh, what about at the high end? Isn't we're not judging everybody by Olympic athletes. If a man is a second faster than a woman in 100 meter dash, that doesn't, the median is also the same like across the board. The median is. The men are higher or you know, better so to speak, at these things on a median level than the women. And so we created a women's division to have the full range of competition there. And so you are. It is a big ask. I say all that to say, not to say that we should just, that's the end of the discussion. I think we should acknowledge it's a big ask to say, hey, people who are by, who were assigned male at birth, they want to compete with women. That's a big ass. That's not just saying, oh just take down the color barrier and you know, like, and there's no need to separate people that are, you know, all men or all, you know, whatever. And so that. It's a big ask. I, I think that I'll say this and I got, I'll, I'll, I'll get back. I want to kick it to you though, but I think that what the, the gulf governing bodies here are doing is constructive. And so I'm happy that what they're doing is constructive because as you said, it's kind of a next stage in kind of the shock or whatever. Like I do worry that this may miss the mark from an unintended cons consequences standpoint simply because you set this benchmark of puberty, then that does necessarily mean that you gotta have minors go get medical gender.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: I thought about that too.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Like you're basically in codifying saying look, you better go get gender, gender affirming care before you turn 12 or 11. Like that's a pretty big decision to make as a 10 year old or whatever, you know. So I'm worried about that. And again, not from a competition standpoint. Like I think competitively this does kind of seem to solve the problem when kids are eight or nine, you know, boys and girls compete all the time together, you know, but it seems like you're just put, that's a pretty heavy burden to put on somebody at 9, 10 years old. Like, hey, you gotta do this. And some of this stuff may not be reversible. And so I worry about that from the welfare of the person who maybe may believe that they're trans. Like people think a lot of things when they're 8, 9, 10 years old, that may not necessarily be the case when they're 21, 22. So I worry about it from that. But just kind of unintended consequence standpoint.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think you're right. I thought about that too. That, yeah, by, by saying this, maybe you're unintentionally giving people an idea that they got to start, you know, experimenting with this stuff even earlier in life, which again brings up another.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: Or they'll face consequences, you know, they'll face very.
[00:44:48] Speaker B: And now, because we've done other discussions about this in prior shows where we do acknowledge, like, obviously society has agreed collectively that the age of 18 generally, except for drinking alcohol in the United States, but most of the countries is 18 with alcohol as well. You can go to war at 18, you can get a tattoo, you can.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: Start making your own cigarette decisions. Correct. Long term decisions for your own body, you know?
[00:45:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I mean. So that's why, you know, it does create a dilemma with, you know, Seth, 11 or 12 year old that now is being told, if you do want to compete, if you're a boy and you want to be in the LG LPGA by the age of 25, then you got to get started changing now. And look, that's something that, you know, we'll have to continue to work through a society. I don't have an answer for that because I, I tend to agree with our collective decision that kind of, this 18 years of age is probably when people, we should allow people to not be kids anymore to begin to be able to start making decisions. Because I say that doesn't mean I'm anti trans. I'm just saying this is a complex issue. Right. And so that's where I'm getting at as well, is for those of us like me and you, and people that think like us, that you generally would want to see every individual's right protected in the United States. This is a messy issue because of everything we're saying. I also think with the trans community, you know, sometimes I would, I think, like I would say it this way, you need to ask, you need to be a little bit patient because you're bringing something to society that is also brand new. And think about it, we joke about this sometimes too. We still can't even agree in this country about what the cause of the Civil War was. Right. We've had integration for 60 years and we still have issues and discussions in the country fighting about affirmative action and all this. So all these issues are very sensitive. And now we've thrown another log on the cultural fire of discussion in America, which is the lg, I mean, the transgender log. And that's just another one that's being dealt with.
[00:46:53] Speaker A: I would go even further than that. It's an interesting point. And you say, okay, well, asking people to be patient for justice, so to speak, is kind of callous, which conceptually I understand. But I think again, this can be distinguished in a way that we have a society that is built, not just ours, across the world. You know, like human societies are all based for the most part on the idea that gender is binary. Like, that's kind of the construct on all these societies and all these cultures all around. And so if what the trans community brings to us is that gender is not binary and if they support that and they, like, I'm willing to listen to anything, you know, like, so. And I'm willing to, okay, this is my, my, my experience and understanding is this. But I'm always willing to look at new evidence, new, new, new, new information and reconsider and everything like that. So. But the issue I think that we really face right now is that if society has been built, societies around the world have been built on the idea that gender is binary. I mean, I guess it's beyond even human societies. You look at mammals and you look at sexual reproduction anywhere where you have this, you know, like a male, female type of thing. The. If it's built on, if you're going to push back on the idea that gender is binary, then you, I would think you have to understand that you're going to. It's not. You can't then say, let's put this non binary gender issue into the existing binary gender structures. Like, don't we need to change the structures to not be binary as well? You know, and so that to me is the, the, the kind of, that's why I said a big ask earlier. Is that, okay, you're telling me gender's not binary? Well, if that, that's the case, then why are you trying to fit this into a binary LPGA and pga? Like that is a binary organization or set of organizations that's binary, you know, like, then, so if gender isn't binary, then maybe we need to rethink how we do that as opposed to just saying, hey, let's stick the trans women in with the women. Because it's like, well, hold on, we've already. If we're saying gender is not binary, then that shouldn't be because that disadvantages.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting, man. Yeah, I'm sorry, you finished? Because I don't.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: No, I was gonna say that. What I was saying is that that disadvantages the women assigned at birth because of the information you just cited as far as what puberty does and so forth, and because of what we know for millions of years of human history, as far as how you're high end male and you're median male performance wise athletically versus high end female and median female. And so if you're gonna turn that over, then let's build something new altogether. Don't just put what that is into the existing structure.
[00:49:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, as you're talking, it made me realize, because I appreciate what you're saying. It's, it's basically like the opposite of eugenics when you're talking about this binary thing and trying to fit it into a society that already is, you know, set up with, with non binary, I guess, distinctions.
[00:49:46] Speaker A: Well, no, it's distinction. The society is set up as binary. So but you're, you're, if you're now the, the, these, what's proposed or what's submitted is that it's not binary. And so then do we just fit the not binary into the binary system or do we have to figure out how do we create systems that account for the not binary?
[00:50:04] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, do you just create a transgender league and let people figure it out? And so because I'm saying, like you general think about eugenics, you know, after colonialism, this, this idea pops up by the mid late 1800s that there's all these hierarchies in the human actual, like makeup, but, you know, not just culturally, but actually from a DNA standpoint that certain humans are better or smarter than others and more powerful. And all that that got led to its natural conclusion. Unfortunately by 1945 with, you know, the end of the Second World War and the discoveries of the Holocaust. Right. If you believe that certain humans are inferior, the natural conclusion is going to be to try and exterminate all of them. What saved the world.
[00:50:49] Speaker A: Resources. Yeah, because we're all right.
[00:50:51] Speaker B: What saved the world from eugenics continuing. Not only was that horror and the horrors that, you know, were perpetrated before that time too, but it's also the fact that the scientific method, through facts, analysis, all that disproved that idea. And it, no one can really prove scientifically that there's these huge differences in human groups. And so that was kind of forced to die on a vine in a sense. And I know people are trying to resurrect it today culturally, but there's still no, they're not able to prove it. It's I guess the bigger big lie in a sense.
[00:51:24] Speaker A: But cultural argument, not a science argument anymore.
[00:51:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a cultural big lie. But this is different because this is almost like the opposite of that. People trying to, trying to bring in a topic and then trying to put in like trying to say, okay, well we know that for most of human or all of human existence and what we see, like you said, in other biological creatures that are similar to us, that have a male and female, it is non binary and it always has been considered that way. Now we're going to try and tell you.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: Are you confused? Okay, it's non binary.
[00:52:02] Speaker B: I keep confusing that. So.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: Meaning. Yeah, you're confusing me.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: People are trying to say that the.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: Gender thing from a biological thing, but just from a biological thing, like the idea of sexual reproduction Production vs. Asexual Asexual reproduction is like bacteria. It creates a replica of itself and then that replica moves on. Sexual reproduction is. You have, you have a one gender and two gender binary and then they combine to create an offspring. So that construct is a binary construct. And I'm not, I'm not saying that anybody who says it's not binary is wrong. I'm interested to see present the.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: That's what I was saying is. Yeah, and thanks because you helped me get to where my brain was trying to go because I totally messed up the non binary environment. But basically what I'm saying is the people that are critical of those who do research into things like how early is it healthy or not healthy to give a child hormones and things like that, they are like the opposite of the, they're similar to the eugenicists, that they don't really want the scientific method and the people that actually can study this stuff looking too hard on it because, you know, it may not jive with actually the ideology and the culture that they believe in.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: And so remember we did a show on that a few months ago about the people, the researchers. And again, these aren't politicians or talk show hosts or anything. They were researchers, scientists that were expressing fear that they didn't want to study this because they were worried if, what if the results came back with something that maybe people were not happy about culturally, that they would get attacked and they would see that happen to their colleagues and so forth with just. And again, this is. We kind of need the scientific method here, you know, to kind of do it. But I'll say this though, even if this ends up being a cultural thing and not a scientific thing, like I, I'm not saying you dismiss People then, you know, like it's, it's. If this is something in society that we're going to deal with, I'm not saying you got to prove it to me that this is 100% scientific, irrefutable and all that. I'm saying that if you're going to try to say that the construct of society that we have now is wrong, you can't then also say that. Then let's take how we're saying it's different and force that into the existing structure. We should be talking about how do we account for everybody, how do we try to, or at least as many people as we can. Like, I'm not saying turn your back on anybody, you know, I'm just saying that let's not, in order to, to make this group happy, let's not violate or do something that's unfair to this other group that we created this whole division for, you know, because again, like to create, to foster competition and so forth. So it's just not as easy as it's not self centered. Basically. It's like, hey, how can we look at this holistically? Which back to the LPGA and USA thing, I think that's what they're doing. You know, I, I think this is constructive and so I applaud it. Again, I'm just worried like oh well that does create that. I'm always looking at what the incentives are. And so it's like, oh well that does mean that. So if you're, if you have a, do you start having your talks with your child at 8 or 9, like hey, you know, this is kind of what, what it's looking like here, like they're still competing in co ed sports then you know, depending on the sport, like 8, 9, 10 years old. Like so, so yeah, it's just, it's the unintended consequences may be of concern. But again, I appreciate constructive solutions because honestly with all of these societal things, we got to try stuff, it may or may not work. There may be unintended consequences, but that's how we learn and that's how we continue to improve. So doing nothing is not what I'm going to advocate for. But let's be constructive. Let's not just try to be exclude or to exclude or try to be mean. And so again I applaud this and let's evaluate and be honest and see what happens.
[00:55:47] Speaker B: Yeah, you said, I know we want to wrap up and you said something that actually made me, I want to say this though because you just said something that made me appreciate that this subject, as much as it may not seem that way, what I'm about to say, I see a connection. It's kind of like religion because, like, we're saying that some people, you know, I don't want to get an argument about, you know, trying to prove religious facts and all that, but. Right. Some people take. They really believe literally everything in the Bible, all that happened, Moses split the Red Sea, the bush did talk when it was burning, all that. Other people say, no, I don't believe it literally, but I still enjoy. I'm religious, I understand the allegories, all that, and I believe in God. And then other people say, I'm not religious at all.
[00:56:26] Speaker A: And other people believe different things religiously. You know, like you believe totally different set of myths, but go ahead.
[00:56:32] Speaker B: Correct. So we've created a society where we can all coexist generally. But think about what you're saying, right? We've created. This side is okay, if you're Jewish, you got a synagogue over here. If you're Muslim, you got a mosque. If you're Christian, you got a church, all that. So what we're saying is having a. The way that the trans thing is with sports now, the LPGA is saying it's almost like we want to respect everybody's religion in a sense. If you go to the synagogue, you're doing Jewish stuff, you going to the mosque, you're doing Muslim stuff, you go to the church, you're doing Christian stuff. But it would. I think we would all accept that it would be considered rude and, and not kind of just untoward type of thing if one of the three went to the other place's place of worship and tried to really start praying. Like, like if the, if that Muslim guy went into a church or a synagogue, put the prayer rug down right in the middle of the sanctuary of the other religion and started praying, I mean, people would be like, hey, dude, come on, man, we're not trying to offend your religion. You have a right to practice it. But you just came into our space, and we have a right to not want this right here either. And I feel like it's the same thing that if women have a. Someone who was a male just recently coming into their space to compete, they have a right to. To say, hey, that might not be fair. And the reason I feel that way is.
[00:57:51] Speaker A: And that's not necessarily saying you're against if.
[00:57:54] Speaker B: Correct. It's not discriminatory.
[00:57:55] Speaker A: You're not saying, hey, I'm not against the Muslim person Praying. It's just, is that the right.
[00:57:59] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying is, and that's what we're saying is people like you and I, we want, you know, trans people to have rights. They shouldn't be second class citizen. There shouldn't be a Jim Crow type of setup on trans. But I also feel like, like I played NCAA basketball, I was 6 foot 4 by the time I was 15 years old in high school. So what happens is I was catching alley oops and dunking a ball. By 15, 16, I, you know, in a different world, right, maybe I would have decided I want to be a girl by the time I was 16 or 17. And let's say you start the hormone therapies and all that. I mean, would it be fair to consider that I should go right on a basketball court and play with girls? Because it's not about me at that point. What about the fairness to those, the girls that. Yeah, it's about not be able to compete with me. Yeah. You know, so that's all I'm saying about, you know, also the trans community having that awareness that, you know, a lot of people, this is not something that they're used to and that there is a certain level of unfairness. If a 15 year old boy who's 6 foot 4 and plays basketball and was good enough to play in college ends up saying I want to be on the girls high school basketball team and the tallest girl is 5 foot 9, that just gives an unfair advantage.
[00:59:11] Speaker A: You know, I, I thought you were going to go somewhere different when you were saying like, I thought you were going to say like, okay, and this is interesting, it popped into my head was, okay, so we have all these different religions. Imagine if we tried to create a society where you'd had to be in one religion or the other and that's it. And it would, it would break.
[00:59:27] Speaker B: That's called authoritarianism.
[00:59:30] Speaker A: But it would spray, it would, it would be, it would break. If there, if there are six or seven religions, then we just have six or seven religions. We're not trying to force them all into some binary or, or some, some construct just because that was there already, so to speak. And so I think that's really the thing, you know, like it's, if we're going to expand our society's perception of gender, which again, I can live with that if that's what we're going to do. But let's do that though. Let's not say we're going to expand it while staying in the existing construct. So ultimately, it's an issue. Like I said, I'm happy that they're doing this, and I think this will provide information for us to see how to continue to improve upon it and do it better. So ultimately, that's progress. And, you know, like, this doesn't have to be the end. This can be the beginning of something. And. But again, it's constructive. It's not, like, mean or, you know, like purposeful. Just trying to be, you know, mean or exclusionary, anything like that. So it's helpful. I mean, so let's. Let's. Let's do it. Let's learn from it and, you know, keep it moving. So I think we can wrap this topic and this show from there. We appreciate it. Wrap you. Join us on this episode of Call Like I see It. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. Till next time, I'm James Keys.
[01:00:40] Speaker B: I am Tunde. Lana.
[01:00:42] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
