Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Jack Jackson, Women's Health Organization, and consider how we may need to adjust our approach to this experiment in self governance if we still want to strive towards the aspirational ideals espoused by our founding fathers. And later on, we're going to discuss BlackRock's recent decision to focus less on ESG investing, which they had previously championed, and consider what responsibility, if any, such a large asset manager has in pushing companies to that they invest in to do more for from a climate change standpoint.
Joining me today is a man who I can assure you that there's no mountain high enough to stop Tunde Ogonlana Tunde. Are you ready to show the people how you always get to your takes?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, man. All right, I'm going to climb the summit.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: All right. All right. There we go.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: If I can say it that way.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, you certainly can.
Now recording this on June 27, 2020, and there's been a lot of activity coming out of the Supreme Court over the past week or so. For example, our highest court has issued rulings which protect the right for people to for conceal conceal carry firearms and protect the right for public school employees to pray at school. But most notably the one that's gotten the most attention. And we saw the Supreme Court rule that the Constitution does not in fact protect a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy and that any state is free to regulate or prohibit abortion.
Now, everyone's weighed in on this since it's happened and explained why if you're in certain camps, it's the best thing ever, or if you're in other camps, it's the worst thing ever. And so while we'll briefly react to the ruling and the implications, we also want to discuss, take a larger view and discuss what the way we got here says about our system and consider whether there's any way forward on an issue like this with such a high level of polarization. And actually this level of polarization kind of exemplifies the kind of polarization we're seeing across our society.
So, Tunde, just to get us started, what was your general reaction to the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey?
And also just the extent to which the issue on whether abortion should be legal remains among the most divisive issues in the country.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: I'm not surprised because number one, I'm born in the late 70s and from there, you know, I was born during the Carter administration, but I don't remember that because I was a baby. So I can remember my earliest memories of politics is Ronald Reagan. I can remember the Moral Majority. I remember hearing about abortions as a kid in the 80s. So the point is that for 49 years the there have been a lot of Americans who, this has been their mission and they have been telegraphing that to all of us openly and transparently. And then fast forward just to the last decade, President Trump was very upfront telegraphing and being transparent that one of his primary goals was to change the makeup of the courts. And we saw the political maneuvers by people like Mitch McConnell to purposely stop someone like President Obama in appointing a justice, but making sure that when there was openings under President Trump, they got appointed. So my point is that he got.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Three in, in four years.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: And my point, look, that they've had a laser focused mission on this and they've accomplished it. So I am totally not surprised that this has happened. I guess that's my reaction. Like, I'm not sure I understand why so many people are surprised, but I kind of have not either. That's why I'm just, I can't watch the news again.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: It requires.
I think that's part of the thing is that for whatever reason people have been saying that this has been their number one focus, or a lot of people have been saying this has been their number one focus and that there's been these litmus tests and the Heritage foundation has like grown judges, so to speak, straight from law school or even before to, to try to accomplish this. And amongst other things, they wanna roll back. And so the fact that it culminated and they finally accomplished it, the surprise, the level of surprise in our society did actually take. I was taken aback more so when the draft opinion came out. Cause it's like, isn't this what they had been working for? And when each time they would win an election, they would try to incrementally move it a little closer and a little closer and a little closer. And so ultimately, I mean, as you've said to me in private conversations, like, this is why voting matters. Like, you have to get out there. And even when it's like, oh, I'm not in love with this candidate or anything like that, there's certain values, there's a struggle, there's an ideological struggle, and then there's values that matter in terms of the standpoint of, okay, well, is something like this going to be the way it remains? Things change in the world. And so I think it's. I actually, while I wasn't surprised, I mean, particularly with the leak previous, I'm still disappointed in the sense that I think that our laws and the way our Constitution, the purpose of our Constitution in preserving the rights of individuals against the state is something that, like, that's what we need to hold dear. Because once we start whittling away, once the state can start taking away the right to do more and more and more, then those things, those are slippery slopes. And we end up in places where liberty and freedom are kind of a cruel joke. And we've been in situations like that in our country before. It wasn't a slip of the tongue when I said the ideals of our country were and still are in some respects aspirational.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: I definitely appreciate everything you said just now earlier about the rights and the government taking away the right of an individual to choose. And I remember joking with you privately that it's ironic to me that most of the people that are pro life are also of the attitude that they don't want the government in their business personally, and they hold things like the Bill of Rights dearly. So I recognize that for a lot of women that are pro choice, they feel this represents the government taking away their right to choose how they deal with a fetus that's in their body. And I have no argument with that. That's my point. That's why I know this is a messy topic and it's a very personal topic for everyone.
But I come down on the side of most of the people that I know and that I've seen talk about abortion do it from a religious angle, that this is not what my religion is about, or this is not what God wants this and that. And I can totally respect that too, because I respect everybody's religious belief and the right to have that. But this is where to me it looks a little bit like if that is the case, then we have an issue with the First Amendment here because we are pushing, we're having the courts make decisions on people's religious belief system that may or may not coincide with.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Someone else's on enforcing it. Well, no, you raise a really good point there because it's interesting, like the arc that you just took us on, that's the reason that you have the establishment clause in the U.S. constitution in the First Amendment, because these questions that once you start invoking religion and my religious beliefs, there is no compromise. There is no quarter to be given. It's either my way or nothing else. And so ultimately that is a concern in this, from the standpoint of our Constitution, is that, well, if people's position on this is based on religion and, and it's not to attack their exercise of religion because there's nothing at stake here about whether or not a person is required to do this. So anyone whose religious belief says that this is wrong is free to not do it. And so it's only about whether they can impose that on other people. And you're right, if the basis and justification comes for religion, then we are going against the teachings and what was learned by our founding fathers that these matters. Once religion becomes a basis for doing something, there's no, that's it. It's just going to be perpetually at each other's throats until there's only one group left. And so that we do need to avoid that pitfall, and I would hope that most of us and nearly all of us could agree on that, that we have to avoid that pitfall because otherwise you either end up in a theocracy or otherwise your republic is going to fall.
Your republic was democratically elected officials is going to fall because there's no compromise. There's no, it is winner take all from a religious standpoint. And all of human history tells us that.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and we had a show recently in the last few weeks where we basically quoted and cited writing, not only the Constitution itself, but other writings from the founders of Washington specifically. Yeah, those men, not some obscure guys, but the main guys that really proved that this country on purpose was not founded on any religion for these reasons. And you know, and I want to say here, because I kind of was like, let me go to the right source here because I had heard and got wind of the fact that Baptists, generally Southern Baptists in the United States were pro choice until around 1980, and.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Which you blew me away with that.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Yeah, me too.
And that's another example, right. Because religious culture changes over time as well, you know, based on, you know, factors. And the founding fathers understood that and they wanted to create a system that would have a staying power, more than just a generation of two of how people wanted to believe. And religion has a way of, as we're talking about now with this, with this conversation around abortion, inflame such passions that the actual part of governing a society may go to the wayside if people are so focused on and hyper focused on, let's put it, the polarizing the potential for polarizing discussions if they're brought from a religious angle and not the kind of, okay, we're going to put religion as a personal thing, but the law here and the way that the system is going to be governed has got to be kind of secular. You know, it's got to be separate from religion so that we all can join in this together without the emotional spirits unleashed. And so what I have is a quote from thebaptistpress.com and we'll have it in the show notes the link, but I'll quote here. In 1970, a poll conducted by the Baptist Sunday School board found that 70% of Southern Baptist pastors supported abortion to protect the mental or physical health of the mother, 64% supported abortion in cases of fetal deformity and 71% in cases of rape. Three years later, a poll conducted by the Baptist Standard News journal found that 90% of Texas Baptists believed their state's abortion laws were too restrictive.
So that's 50 years ago.
I would be surprised if that number was 90% of Texas Baptist being pulled today because I think that the culture in the Baptist church has changed and more Baptists now are pro life, not pro choice. But it's an example of how, you know, in 50 years that that ideology changed within a major religion here in the United States.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: And so, you know, so just that's why to me, it's, it's, it's an interesting. That's why I say I wasn't that surprised at this change because knowing that culture shift and the telegraphing and public nature of the conversations around abortion from American conservatives, who should be surprised that this happened.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah, Well, I mean, the surprise is one thing that I guess I would look to. There was discussion, for example, when the Supreme Court justices that were the most recent ones when they were being confirmed at the court, there was discussion on whether or not Roe v. Wade was established law or there's something that they were going to try to overturn or whatever. And I do want to look at, not to take too long, but I do want to look briefly at how we got here, because we've seen some people now crawling out and saying, hey, the Supreme Court justices lied. You know, they maybe we should be looking, and that's impeachable. That's an impeachable offense and so forth. And I mean, outright Senators Joe Manchin and Susan Collins have said that the justices misled or lied to them during the confirmation process, which is a pretty serious thing to claim.
Now, it may end up in. What are you going to do about it? Nothing you can do about it now, but because Supreme Court justices are generally appointed for life and it's not something that we generally see where people are trying to remove them. But what did you make of these claims and these, and people, people in high places, people involved with the confirmation saying that they were misled in terms of what these justices intentions were, whether or not they're, we're not supposed to judge them by their religion. We're supposed to judge them by, I guess, what they say or who they say they are and so forth. So what did you make of that?
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Again, I didn't make much of it, man. You know, and, and no, seriously, I mean, look, and, and look, I want to state this for the record and the audience of the show. I'm pro choice, personally. I think it is a woman's right to choose what happens to her body. I am a, I think it's more of a conservative principle. It's funny that the government shouldn't be in the role of telling a woman what to do because it's, you know, you know, people, it seems that the people that don't like centralized power love this one. And so, and so, and I generally agree with that crowd about not having centralized power. So, and that's what I'm saying. So I don't want to sound flippant when I say that. Who couldn't see this coming? And in answering your question now, I, again, I, I, I'm not surprised that they're saying this because I know they're embarrassed that they got to go back, especially Susan Collins, because she was the one that was supposed to be the, the moderate Republican female senator who was going to stick up for the women. And now all the women that are pro choice feel that she turned her back on them. I don't know what her personal view is. If she's pro life, pro choice. If she's pro life, she should just say whatever. Joe Manchin I don't know. My point is, in remembering those hearings, I don't know if they lied or if they answered questions vaguely or whatever. You want to define how they did it. Right.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: They gave, I mean, I'll tell you, they gave lawyered up answers. They gave answers that are intended to not say anything concrete. And hopefully whoever hears it will take from it what they wanted to hear. No, and I, look, I mean, like.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Their Supreme Court justices, I'm gonna assume they were the best lawyers in their practice. Right? These were the top, this is like being upset because the five starters on the Eastern Conference all star team in the NBA know how to dunk a basketball. Right? Like what I'm saying is it's all there, right? These are great lawyers. They're freaking Supreme Court justices. So of course they're gonna be lawyered up when they're having their Senate committee hearings. And my point is just saying that none of that matters to me because we already knew before they got picked what the game was. That's my point.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: And I'm not saying it to be upset, I'm saying it out of reality. It's like when I saw Republicans last year because Biden had the Green New Deal idea. I'm like, well, what do you expect? He's a Democrat, of course he's gonna try and do something about green energy. Cuz that's what Democrats are about right now.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: That's what his voters expect.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: And in this case, yeah, you would.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Think that's what I'm saying. Like the voters voted. One reason Donald Trump won, forget about him and his bombasticness and his narcissism, he couldn't win off that. One reason he won is cuz he picked Mike Pence as Vice president, which was a signal to the evangelical voters.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: And he explicitly said that he will get his nominees from the Heritage Foundation.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Exactly. That's my point is one reason he won is because he showed the voters and his base that he was serious. He might have been a buffoon about a lot of things and about his behavior, but he was serious about the transaction. If you allow me to become president, I will take care of you in this area. I'm gonna get a vice president to prove Mike Pence, who's very well respected in the faith crowd and the evangelical crowd. And then, and then, and then, like you're saying, he advertised. I'm going to get the judges you want. We're going to overturn Roe versus Wade. So my point is, again, why are we surprised here?
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Well, I think this issue is less about surprise, actually, and more about whether we should be okay with it. Because yes, these guys, I'm sure if you parse through now two pieces here, one, these senators met with these people outside of the public hearings, so we can't fully evaluate whether or not they say they were misled or lied to and so forth because we don't know what happened behind closed doors with these folks, which I'll address that here in a second. But the other piece is, should we be okay with someone who these people aren't voted on, they can never be held accountable by the public. They are appointed and then confirmed by the Senate for life. Should we be okay with officials like that giving lawyered up responses, given the type of giving non answers to serious questions? And because to me, where you go down on this road is like at a certain point we've accepted a certain level of gamesmanship, so to speak, or I would call it outright dishonesty from politicians. But at minimum, politicians have to come before the people every couple of years, every two years, every four years, every six years, whatever it is.
And that's when they're supposed to be held to account for what they said, what they didn't say, what they did, what they didn't do, and so forth. And so there in some instances, them being okay or them knowing that culturally it's okay to tell lies here and there, some tell more than the others. But that is something that we do have an ongoing say in. And it's like, oh, well, he lied about this, he lied about that. People still voted them in. It's like, what are we going to do? But in this instance, this is almost the win at all costs mentality invading the judiciary. And it's like, look, I just got to get there. I'll say whatever I need to get there. Once I get there, nobody can do anything about me. And that is, that's a, that's a concern that we should, that I think we need to pay very close attention to. Because, and I say this maybe because I'm a lawyer, because the judiciary is supposed to be above a lot of this fray. It needs to be. If the rule of law is going to be something that we hold dear, then it can't be something that depends on partisan affiliation or ideology solely, or it's something that's largely based on that, because the rule of law is supposed to treat everybody the same. It hasn't, it's aspirational, but it's an actual clear departure from that. If judges now appointed judges, federal judges, lifetime appointed, if the game plan is, look, just say whatever you need to say in order to get through the confirmation and then do whatever you want once you get there, that undermines, that potentially undermines our ability to continue to operate under the rule of law, because the judges are supposed to be the people who backstop all of the dishonesty, all of the games that are played in politics, all of the money that's involved in the politics. The judges don't run campaigns, they don't get donations, they don't then owe favors because of the donations. We're taking the judiciary now down a path that is more harmful because they don't answer to the people.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, and the Supreme Court specifically is elevated on that. Cause they're the only branch of the judiciary that doesn't have to follow ethics rules. Correct. Like you as an attorney with the state bar here in Florida, you got some sort of rules. Right. It's an organization that if you did a terrible job or you were ripping off clients, they could go complain and the bar could.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: They could take away my livelihood.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Take away your license. Correct. And so the Supreme Court is the only nine judges in the United States that don't have to follow those kind of rules. But so when I say that it's, I guess just to point it out, it doesn't mean that I say, okay, they should be able to lie. My point is, is that you're absolutely right. I mean, integrity is important, I think, in all aspects of leadership, government, all that. And as you well pointed out to, it's been totally eroded at the political level.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: We don't even expect it really at the political level.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Which is sad. Which I think is like from the, you know, you read stuff from the ancient time of the Greeks and all that. It's, it was the same thing. People complaining about politicians lying. But so I think that's just, it's as old as prostitution, you know, as old as time. But for the case of the judges, I mean, it's interesting because I can't help but think with this Rovers way, the only other thing that's almost as emotional that might come to my mind are things like that civil rights stuff, the kind of racial stuff in our country where there was once certain norms and precedents like Plessy versus Ferguson, as this Texas senator pointed out, that said that blacks aren't people basically, we're not the same equal humans and that we don't deserve citizenship because that the ruling from the 1800s which was overturned in 1954 with Brown versus Board of Education, which said that it is discrimination, you can't discriminate in public schools because separate and equals is a joke. You're having separate and unequal and blah blah, blah. So there's a lot of people that like segregation at a certain point in this country that were very upset and they were so upset that they, you know, that's the whole story of the Southern Strategy. Right. The Southern Democrats, the Dixiecrats, millions of people literally left the Democratic Party to go join the Republican Party. Cuz they were that angry at Lyndon Johnson and he called, he said he.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Lost, I just lost the south for a generation. And he undershot it. But that was when he signed the civil rights acts and so forth voting rights acts in the 60s when, like that, that was when the Dixie crash Democrats left.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: So and that's what I mean. It's, it's. There are things that get legislated on that are very emotional. And going back to, you know, how we got into this part of the conversation, I don't know if there were any confirmation hearings in the 1950s or 40s and when these guys were getting confirmed where someone might have asked him, hey, if the issue of integration ever comes up federally, how are you going to rule? You know. And maybe they were saying what they needed to say goodbye and they ended up ruling different and Brownburg was, who knows. But my point is, is that you're right. What I think the danger we have today, especially today with things we've talked about in the past, shows like Ecosystems, is that just like other areas of our political discourse, the courts have been drug into the culture wars. And I think that's part of this danger.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: You know, I agree 100% a little.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Bit of both because I think in the 50s and 60s without the ecosystems, people didn't know who the hell the supreme half the time, who these judges were and all that. It wasn't like it is now.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Well, but, and I think that should be, my point is that that should be an alert, that should be a red alert to us because it's not the same thing to have our federal judges be falling into the same stuff and engaging in the same behaviors or conduct as our federal politicians. It's not because our federal politicians have to come before the voters, the judges don't. So we have to be very careful with this, what's normalized in this case. But I do want to keep moving because I also want to ask you big picture.
We know when we talked about this at the beginning of the show, we all most likely are not going to be able to agree on an issue like this, on this abortion issue, whether or not it's not an issue of whether abortion is good or bad, it's just whether or not the state should be making that decision for people, for the women, you know, that, that are, that are carrying a baby or whatever. Do, do you think there is a path forward where something like this is not just going to dominate our politics non stop. Is, is, is it something like, like you had mentioned earlier in the week Is it something about how we need, how we're viewing law or that we may need to change how we're viewing law and the role of law, so forth? Or what is, what, what do you see as the path forward? Because you're, you're at least half the time you're optimistic.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
The interesting thing is, no, I think the way that we are wired in our culture in America, this topic, at least in our lifetime for sure is never going to go away no matter who wins in the day of the fight. Right?
[00:25:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: So is that, you know, the pro.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Choice crowd didn't go away in 1973.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: The pro choice crowd won in 73. And then with 49 years of focus and hard work, the pro life crowd seems to have won last week and now in 2022. And I just think it's going to now put the shoe on the other foot and the pro choice crowd is going to get to work again and they're going to spend time trying to figure out how to put people on the courts and all that, just like the right did, you know, for. And it'll go back and forth. And I think part of the issue is this, just like I alluded to earlier, everything is getting drug into our culture and our politics now. It's the judiciary branch where they're becoming heroes and villains. You know, some people love Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, other people hate her, some people love Sotomayor and you know, whoever else. And other people hate the liberals, you know, so, so it's like even the law can't escape the culture wars now. And I think that's the real danger long term is because we don't have the ability to have a discourse in this country or these people don't seem to want to where they can come to the table to at least respect the other person's side. So for example, there's a lot of people that think that are on the pro life side that really believe that most women who get abortions literally use it as birth control.
Like a woman will have 15 abortions over a two year period just because she's that lazy that she doesn't want to have a guy use a condom or she's some kind of whore. That's absurd. Most women that get an abortion is a very serious thing for them and they don't like it and it's not fun for them.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: See, but I gotta stop you there, man, because even if that was the case, the issue is, in my view at least, is that those People who think that women use it as birth control think that because they don't think it's the right thing to do, that it should be the law. Because I think what happened.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: But what I'm thinking is, because no one is going to win with that argument. That's all I'm saying is you first got to start with having both sides of this argument at least look at the other side as human and that they have a fair. Like, they have a legitimacy. You see what I'm saying? Like, they have a legitimacy to have a side of this. And I think it's the same thing. Like, a lot of people that are.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Pro choice, they should have some level of agency, you know, like, and they're a legitimate person, so to speak.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: And that's what I mean. Like, and I want to be fair to the pro life crowd because a lot of people that are pro choice look at the pro life crowd like they're just a bunch of almost like religious nutcases. And they just, they just don't get it. And they're just. They're just brainwashed and all that. Where, you know, I'm pro choice and I'm not religious. But I have come as I matured as an adult. Like, I respect that someone might have this in their religious view, even if I can intellectually say I've never seen the discussion about abortion in the Bible. But if they believe that's about what their religion is about, advising on this stuff, who am I to say that they're wrong when I'm not religious myself? So at least me as a person would say, okay, I'm pro choice, but I gotta come to this conversation, understanding the other side's viewpoint and at least coming into a conversation where I'm showing them that I want to respect that they have this view first so that we can at least have a conversation. And I'm saying nobody's doing that on either side.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: And so, I mean, that's a fair point. I disagree. I think actually that the only way that you ever get to a workable solution with this and a lot of the culture war issues actually is if we kind of pick up where the founding fathers left off.
And like, your religious belief, for example, just can't be the basis for law. It's the role of law in our society. And I know we had talked, you and I had talked about potentially doing more in the show about what the role of law, what the role of law in a society should be. And we'll save that for future shows. But I think that the disconnect, the biggest disconnect here, I don't think everyone necessarily should agree on whether abortion is good, bad, an abomination or an unfortunate circumstance or anything like that. I don't think that everybody is going to or necessarily should need to or should agree on something like that. But what we have to come to some level of agreement on is how much your personal belief system should be enforced through our law. Now, when I look at the Constitution and I look at the First Amendment, it looks like there's supposed to be a disconnect there. There's supposed to be a break, and that people's beliefs, whatever they are, you know, for whether they're religious beliefs or not, should not form the basis of how we're going to do our laws.
And so therefore, based on your beliefs, you govern your own behavior. And then other people, this would be the whole liberty thing, govern their behavior based on their beliefs. And the crossover where society is making laws is when we're trying to create justice, order, things like that, not necessarily to enforce religious beliefs, because then we start sliding into theocracy, because that is what they do in theocracy. They say, hey, this is what our religion said. Our religious says, religion said. So this is what we're going to make our laws. So I think that that requires probably what you were saying, it probably requires us to do what you said first is kind of start looking at each other as people who have some agency and then say, okay, hold up, maybe we need to look at the law. And like I said, to me, the irony is that what I'm saying is that we need to look at the law in the way that it looks like the Founding Fathers tried to set it up, you know, and again, not saying that they did it, because much of what the Founding Fathers did was pure aspiration. It wasn't what they were living, it wasn't what they were doing. But they put it all in the documents and we have them now to still try to aspire to. So to me, that's what has to happen if you're going to get to something where we can lower the, you know, lower the. How much we're screaming at each other and how much we're ignoring everything else.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I was going to tell you that only a Sith deals an absolute. So you kind of scared me when you went into your rank there. I'm like, hold on, my boy's pulling up Palpatine. I thought he was a Jedi.
Now he's, now, now he's now he's going to the dark side now. But I mean, look, that is what it is. Right? And I think that's where I recognize that. I think that the ecosystems have played a large role in again, having Americans look at these topics, which are very important topics, but they don't again. And I want to be very careful. I'm saying this because I understand rights are important.
What happens to a woman's body and how that gets decided in the nations is extremely important. And then we could even transition to something that happened last week too, like second Amendment, the guns. That, that's a very important conversation in this country. And so you know me, I got to be a smart ass mentally and get my stats out. So I had to say, okay, I was doing my research for today.
How many abortions in America? You know, I told you the numbers offline. I was surprised just for the audience.
And we'll put the link up. The rate of the Abortion has declined 50% since 1980 in this country. So I thought that that was maybe an interesting conversation that people could have because the pro life crowd can get something out of that and say, you know, that's good, at least that the numbers went down over time and the pro choice crowd could have a good thing too and say, yeah, I mean, obviously like you said, no one really is here a fan of abortion. It's just, do you believe a person has a right to or the government, do they have a right to tell someone they can or can't. And so the fact that there's less in the last 40 years I think is probably a positive all round.
But I thought, okay, 600,000 abortions in 2020 versus 1.2 million in 1980. Then I went on the farm.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: The rate though, right? Is that the actual number? Because the rate.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: That was the number.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Sorry, those were the numbers. So that's actual numbers and that's with more people. Yeah, correct.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: That's.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: As a percentage of the population. You're right, because the US population in 1980 was around 180 million.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: So you're right. We're almost double the amount of people and have less half the abortion.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: That's. Yeah, that's so what I'm saying than what I understood before.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: No, but what I'm saying is think about it. A different ecosystem. Right. Would be promoting that to both sides as something positive to be celebrated that maybe one could have a conversation around.
[00:33:32] Speaker A: That's an interesting thought.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: So that's my, that's all I wanted to have. This rant Because I'm looking and I'm looking at the amount of time and emotional space this has dominated the last week in this country.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: I mean, honestly.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: And I'm just like you.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Decades.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: With single issue voters and you know, single like we got single issue voters, things like that where it's like this is all they're looking at. So. Yeah, I mean it's. And it's interesting. And I'll say this, you don't want.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Oh no, I was gonna say you don't want to. You gotta be careful not to minimize it because you're dealing with personal rights, you know, versus like life. I wouldn't say life and you.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: Difficult. Yeah.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Yeah. You did caveat it. I think so. I mean, but I think you have to be careful with it because restricting, potentially restricting what someone believes, what they can do with their body or something like that is just, I mean that's something I think we do have to take seriously. But again, it requires us to kind of look at, we're going to have to look at how we're going to do these law. Do the law thing a little differently if we're going to. Or else this is going to always dominant. We'll all run out of food, all run out of drinking water and all run out of electricity. And we're just arguing about these other issues which are important, you know, so it's something.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: But it's also like. Well, real quick, I want to put here because that was really the experiment of the United States. Right. The founding fathers wanted to create a nation and a society that would revere the Constitution, a document that is not emotional, that is supposed to be the guardrail. And I guess as humans we can't stop being ourselves. Right. And we are devolving. Yeah, we're devolving back into tribalism at a true level from the top in this.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: But that's assumes or that statement assumes that we ever got out of it. But you and I, something stood out to us a couple weeks back actually, and we wanted to get to it. And that was BlackRock, their chief executive coming out. And now a couple of years ago, BlackRock had taken the position that ESG investing, it was something that it was important to them.
They termed Larry Fink as the CEO. He termed climate risk as an investment risk. And this is back in 2000 or excuse me, 20. 2020. And recently though, they're going to pivot, they're going to move back from that and saying that essentially they don't view themselves as the environmental Police and where they're going to invest in people or not invest in people and make their decisions from an investment standpoint based on these ESG factors or something that they're going to use in the way that kind of to try to build a better world through investment or something like that. What was your reaction to this kind of U turn to and the decision to focus less on ESG and investing and ESG being environmental, social and governance, you know, and that kind of investing?
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Well, we're breaking precedent today just like the Supreme Court did last week. Because I never said before in a first and second the same thing which is I'm not surprised.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: Oh man.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Well, well I mean that's, that's a.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Precedent that had to go then.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And clearly I'm not surprised for two different reasons. Right? Two different topics. But the reason I say this one I'm not surprised is kind of like not, not similar to the first topic but, but similar because of the ecosystems. I'll say that because I know that BlackRock is an investment manager, period. I mean that's what they do for a living, right. Every day. And so they aren't really in the business of energy policy or you know, doing all that. And so I think it was in this environment we have that so hyper polarized and that everyone has their information from their given ecosystem. I figure it wasn't a matter of time before the kind of fringes on both sides of the topic shoot their arrows at blackrock because blackrock is a big behemoth and won't be able to move nimbly to satisfy either master. And so there's people that don't like anything that has to do with discussing climate discussions or saying that we got to get off fossil fuels and transition over time to green energy or whatever. So they're just going to be mad the fact that BlackRock even went this direction and look at it, that BlackRock, you know, sold out to the libs and all that kind of thing and the environmental people and all that. Then you're going to have those on the fringes of the environmental supporters that are extremely aggressive and they may not understand the idea of like taking bites out of the elephant at the time and maybe a progression to change and said different way.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: They want everything at once. Like they're not like the fringes at the fringes. Everybody's not coming at it from a rational point of view.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: So let's do this in a metered way. They're like yo, we either need this all right now or like they'll essentially would never be satisfied.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: Correct. It's almost like the, when we did Prohibition, like the extremes of the Wets and the Dries.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: And it's just like the one side or maybe we could say in today's world is a better example, maybe the fringes of the gun debate, one side is like don't any regulation is just terrible as bad, blah blah, blah. And then you've got some people are like we got to take all guns away in the United States, which is also probably a fantasy because you're not going to do that. So the ability to meet in the middle was not able to be done here by BlackRock. And they cited that in the article, that it was just too much pushback. And at the end of the day, I think, I mean, I'll look at it one of two ways because I'll quote what Mr. So the CEO of BlackRock, his name is Larry Fink and what he said in January 2020 says climate risk, quote, climate risk is investment risk. And he started going that direction that as climate changes is going to create investment risks and things like infrastructure investment, so on and so forth.
What I'm saying is I don't know if he genuinely said that like out of his own genuine belief or if he said it thinking, okay, this is where I could see the winds blowing. From a marketing perspective, this will make us look better in the society and all that. But either way, I think as someone myself who personally likes the environment and wants to protect the earth and believes that, you know, we live here and we're not going to get to space anytime soon and have colonies and all that.
We should be doing a job of protecting the Earth anytime we can. And so I was glad to see a firm the size of blackrock two years ago initially take this position. So that's kind of where I felt like that was good. But then I'm not surprised we're here.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, well, it's a difficult thing to do. And I think that, I think it's for sure that he believed it and he probably, he might still believe it, but as you said, it's kind of, the implementation of it is a little messier than he might have got into it thinking that there were clear kind of clear lines and yeah. And then go in there and it's a bunch of horse trading and, and cronyism and say, hey, I'll scratch your back, you give me the good ESG rating. And it's like hold up, this isn't even this. Yeah, I thought you guys are serious. This is just another kind of of leg up that people are trying to get. But I think that I thought it was very good that he tried to do it. I think you should get commended for that because what it is basically a lot of times absent people taking stands like this is you end up, we, we end up in our, our, our society with a race to the bottom. And so we've seen this, you know, from an environment standpoint, whoever cares the least gets advantages in the marketplace. Like, hey, should I dump my toxic waste in this river where nobody might not catch me or should I try to dispose of it responsibly? Well, if I dispose of it responsibly, it's going to cost an extra, you know, 10% and if I just dump it in the lake, we'll save all that money. Well, you guess what, Guess which one of those the stock will stockholders would appreciate more. They would appreciate you dumping the stuff. Don't spend 10% more trying to dispose of this stuff. So that kind of race to the bottom permeates in these economic discussions unless someone steps in and does something about it. So I thought it was honorable that he did this and I think he had to have meant it because he's not governed based on public goodwill. He's governed based on return on investment. So he must have thought that doing this would work and that he could deliver the kind of return. But see, I think the problem here, and we've touched on this in other episodes, it's actually, it's back to our government not working and Congress in particular, because the way you fight the race to the bottom, the primary way like consumers, investors can play a role, but the primary way to do that is to create a regulatory environment where if you're not saving 10% by dumping it in the lake, we catch you. And actually we're going to make you pay 20% because of that. And so but without that kind of regulatory environment, and I guess that's executive and legislative, you know, as far as, you know, the laws that are being made and then how they're enforced through the agencies and so forth, which is would be executive but without that accompanying or leading the way, then you're kind he blackrock gets out here, tries to do this stuff and they're kind of out there by themselves and it's like, well, hold on, we're sitting here trying to make decisions for the overall good and nobody else is making decisions based on it. Yeah, so you kind of, kind of hang them out to dry, basically. And I think that's what he saw. Basically. Like we're being hung out to dry here. You're going to get the arrows from the extremes anyway. But we don't even have a framework where the 80% in the middle can, everybody can push in the same direction. And it's just being horse trading and.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: It'S kind of like, like I look at the environmental crowd in this one specifically, like the dries during prohibition, because it's almost like, look, the society and the culture is this way. And so the fact you're trying to come in here and make everything change now, you're gonna get more resistance that way. Like, remember, aren't you doing what you.
[00:43:01] Speaker A: Complain about right now? And you're defining all of the people who are potentially are looking at the environment as the extremes. You're looking at that 10% sliver and saying, hey, that's all of you guys. No, that's what it sounds like to me.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: No, there are extreme environmentalists out there that are more extreme than moderate people that are low.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: But aren't you defining them all by the extreme?
[00:43:22] Speaker B: No, because here I'll quote the article. Quote, the company said it was concerned about proposals to stop financing fossil fuel companies, including forcing them to decommission assets and setting absolute targets for reducing emissions in their supply chains, first of all.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: So that's the moderate position in your mind?
[00:43:39] Speaker B: No, that's an extreme position is my point. Because what I'm saying, that's what BlackRock is saying. One reason why they got out, because they have people, they've put on boards of companies in good faith with this ESG stuff saying, okay, we're going to have someone maybe from the environmental community on the board of the company where we're a large shareholder. Right, because this is how it works with BlackRock. They're the largest shareholder in every asset class in the equity markets, large cap stocks, small cap stocks, all that. So if they, if they have a controlling interest in a company, which they might on several companies, more than a 5% stake, they have the ability to influence things like who gets on a board. So the positive thing that the, for the environmental community has been or was that you had a big player like BlackRock that has that kind of power. That was saying two years ago, we're going to lean into this and use our muscle in that way we can get people on boards of big publicly traded companies that will do the bidding of the environmental community in a certain way. But I think what's happened in reading here is that some of those people probably then went wanted to go too fast for the system. And my point is because remember blackrock has other interests. First of all they could be themselves financing fossil fuel companies.
So you've got shareholders of BlackRock, the company. If they've got $5 billion in loans, how are you going to say cut that off? If I'm a shareholder of BlackRock that loans performing so you can't just cut that off. I'll negotiate with you and say look, maybe in 10 years this company can no longer lend to fossil fuel companies once all these current notes come due and I get paid back as a shareholder.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: Sounds like you're creating an argument for some antitrust that needs to go on here. Not a self dealing.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: That's a whole different story. Yeah, that's a whole different topic but all I'm saying is that because I know just that's why I said it's like when prohibition with the Dries, remember the Wets were willing to get rid of all spirits and liquors in the United States as long as they could keep beer and wine. And the Dries were so aggressive it was like nah, we need all. Everything stopped.
[00:45:44] Speaker A: See but that, that again that oversimplifies it. That that's. You're looking at it and you're saying that wasn't all of the Dries that said that, that was the fringe of the Dries.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: What did I just say? I said the fringe of the environmental group. Very clearly I didn't say all. Listen, I'm pro environment but I'm also pragmatic and say okay, I don't expect fossil fuel companies to go away tomorrow.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: No, but all I'm saying is we just got to be careful being too reductive with these things, you know, like, and so like.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: But what I'm saying is definitely blackrock is telling us they got out of this because of these reasons.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: And the reason they're saying is and we, but we can't apply that anecdote to the entire thing though, you know, like. Well sure it is part of the reason why. Yeah, exactly.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: Well that's what I'm saying.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: But you can't say then that's, that's what happened everywhere though is what I'm saying.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: I didn't, I said that they got it from both sides. I'm just giving an example that there are people from the environmental side that don't understand the complexities of the capital markets. The fact that a lot of these things, it takes a long time to make certain changes. Just like think about it, all the people complaining about higher fuel costs now that might be pro fossil fuel. They don't understand how it works either. They're all mad about Biden and refineries and all that. The United States oil company shut down refineries in 2020 and stopped building new ones because they thought that the world was going to be shut down and it could take two to three years to put a refinery online. So no matter how much you want to pump fossil fuel out of this country, it's not going to happen today, even if Biden stroked a pen and said all the companies can go build refineries tomorrow. So what I'm just saying is all these things are big infrastructure plays that take a lot of time. So the environmental group is. What I'm saying is this is an example of they had a seat in the table. They've had from blackrock a big player that lets them in the door. But because some people on that side, not everybody, but some of the friends, are too overzealous and want to solve it right now then. And because of the emotional need to solve climate change right now, then they've got so aggressive, they're getting in the way of blackrock doing its regular business. And that's part of the reason. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying it's.
[00:47:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, and I think that. But I think that's. That part of the reason probably is overplayed and because it resonates emotionally. I mean, to me, it's pretty simple. I mean, like, it was messier than they thought it was gonna be. I mean, it was like, hey, we thought we'd get in here and we'd move the needle here and things would be able to move a certain way and there are conflicts involved. Like, it didn't play out the way they thought to make such a U turn. Like, this is what I'm saying. It clearly was not what they expected.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. They were saying they wouldn't have done this knowing they're gonna stop it in two years.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: I agree with you.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: That's my point. And so to me, it had. That's. That's how you have to look at it. It's just like they clearly bit off more than they can chew because they wouldn't have been saying all that stuff in 2020 if they thought it was possible that they'd be bailing on it two years later. And so that happens sometime no, that's what I'm saying. I'm not here to kill them for it. It's like, hey, I mean, they gave it a shot. Ideally, they would remain open minded to the thought process, you know, and if they're able to affect things in a less grandiose way, you know, at the margins or something like that, still keep moving things forward. Because we do need ways to, to put pressure on our system to not always be a race to the bottom, to race to the person who's willing, who holds the least dear and who's willing to do the dirtiest thing if that person always has the advantage. It takes us to a dark place. So I mean, ultimately I commend the effort. Clearly it was more than they thought. They bit off more than they could chew. So hopefully the people who should be doing it, maybe it's public investment type trust type things or maybe it's our lawmakers and executives and so forth in.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: The, in the public, yeah, Congress, how about them?
[00:49:19] Speaker A: Yeah, hopefully they can start putting some of that pressure on as well. Like we, I agree with him in one sense. We can't look to the private sector to be the only one doing something.
[00:49:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's key. And you know, that's the sad part is this was the right company to be the one that kind of made this push publicly because of their strength and their power in the capital markets and the fact that they are stepping down, I think symbolically is a big deal because it does hurt those that long term want to see corporate America really come in and embrace environmental support and changes in a positive way.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: Interestingly enough, them trying to save face as they walk out the door is just as damaging too. Like, oh, these crazy people here, these crazy people. But I mean, you get it, they're trying to save face as far as doing.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: It's almost like we say, right? Like who, who's going to want to run for office and serve their community even at the school board level today because of what they've seen the last two years? So we're losing, it's just like this. We're losing good people at the ground level to serve in our communities because of all this crap and this infighting and these attacks from all sides. And look at this, we're losing potentially corporates, good corporations that could support the cause long term of cleaning up the earth and all that because of the same thing. And I think that's again, goes back to ecosystems in our own discourse with each other. And you know, we're not Going to get ahead if we keep dealing with each other this way. I guess that.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: No, for sure, for sure. But I mean, and this is the last thing I'll say is that just usually an investment house like this wouldn't be leading the charge. So, again, like I said, it would be great if they were still there. But I do think, again, if we're expecting them to lead the charge, we are looking in the wrong. We're barking up the wrong tree. We need the government. The government is supposed to be leading this charge. And then they jump in. The government creates an environment where it's profitable for them to jump in and throw their muscle behind it. This was probably out of order to begin with, you know, from. Because, again, you can't argue with that. Like, oh, I can be environment. I can. I can, you know, piss on the environment, basically, and make more money. Like, there's. It's just difficult to argue with that. The race to the bottom wins, absent regulation. So we got it. We got to get out of here, man. You got anything else on this?
[00:51:34] Speaker B: No, I was just going to say that I think we've identified it's Revenge of the Sith. This is pretty cool. It's. We're going to have this whole battle between these forces, you know.
[00:51:43] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's like. It's like the pro life crowd, or, sorry, I meant to say pro choice crowd. And the Democrats were like the Jedi sitting there. And this whole time, like, it's been right in front of them, like, Sidious, remember Palpatine? And then when they. When he shows up, they're surprised, like, oh, how did this happen? It's like, well, guys, it's been happening in front of your face. You just didn't see it.
[00:52:07] Speaker A: Well, no, but I think we can wrap up from here, man. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, and send it to a friend. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:52:20] Speaker B: And I'm Tunde Ogunlana. Episode 10.
[00:52:24] Speaker A: All right, all right.
We'll talk to you next time.
