Where You Gonna be when Half of California Riots?

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conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. I keep having the song rung through my head, which probably hardly any of you have heard, but some of you might have, by Jamie Johnson called

00:10

California Riots. Recorded, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 years ago.

00:15

I don't even remember, but I heard it when it came out and I was actually living in California. So actually, if I was living in California, then it would have been, when was that?

00:25

So, man, okay. So that actually, that was like 15 years ago. That's when I heard the song.

00:30

Anyway, go check it out. I can't play it because it's gonna flag me with copyright stuff, but Jamie Johnson, if you like country music,

00:39

California Riots, even titled the video, where are you gonna go when half of California riots after the lyrics of that particular song.

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But we're gonna talk about the California riots today. It's a subject that's kind of near and dear to my heart just because I'm from Southern California originally.

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And some of these riots are happening not far from where I was born in Van Nuys, California. I'm sure there's probably, even in Van Nuys, I'm sure there's some turmoil, who knows.

01:05

When this kind of stuff happens, you never know what street's gonna be the next street that you're blocked from.

01:10

And I mean, that's not just riots, it's also traffic. But during these kinds of times, when the tension is high, it could be traffic too.

01:17

So for those who are commuting through all this, you have my sympathy and my prayers.

01:24

I do wanna say one thing, one quick announcement before we get into all of this. I do wanna let you know about the men's retreat that's coming up in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of New York, far away from any

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California riot, peaceful, serenity. You get to come and be with other guys who are normal.

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That's the thing that I emphasize. And those are the people that come. I think, I mean, if you think I'm normal,

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I don't know, maybe not, but I try to make this as normal as possible.

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Meaning it's just guys who are not putting on any pretenses, who are coming to fellowship, but we're not just going to do sessions and like a lot of conferences

02:03

I go to, right? You're like in the auditorium, you're at booths, you're having these conversations that are related to whatever's going on in there.

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We don't just do that. There's a lot of outdoor activities, a lot of downtime, really good food.

02:16

Anyway, you're gonna wanna check it out. Musicandmasculinity .com is the website this year. Musicandmasculinity .com.

02:23

And it's not just for musicians. This is for anyone to understand. I think it's gonna give you a fuller grasp of what sacred music should evoke.

02:30

And if you're someone who is in music though, this is gonna be particularly beneficial. I'm actually excited about it.

02:36

We got Tim Bouchon, who is a Christian music artist. He actually was the one who, he runs the studio that he recorded my album and then mixed it.

02:48

Pastor Danny Steinmeier is gonna be there and he's just gonna bring us some good Bible teaching on music. His father,

02:54

Mark Steinmeier though, has been a minister of music, or at least I think he's had various hats that he's filled, but at the very least, he has been a piano player in church for decades and he's very accomplished.

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And he has things to say about music that I really haven't heard anyone else say.

03:13

So I think you'll be blessed by that. Of course, I'll be there. A .D. Robles is gonna be there.

03:20

Myself and A .D. are gonna talk about some things unrelated to music. Mine will kind of have a bridge, but for those who don't wanna hear all about music, there's other stuff too.

03:29

And then of course my dad, Pastor Scott Harris, will be there. I realized that's a recent picture of me.

03:34

And if you're watching, that's like a picture of my dad from 20 years ago, which means we actually don't look like that different in our ages.

03:44

It's kind of weird. I probably should have found a newer picture of my dad. Anyway, yeah, all that dark hair is now gray.

03:51

The schedule's up there on musicandmasculinity .com and you can sign up. So check it out. All right, well, this is a live stream, so I will take some interactions.

04:01

One question is any updates on the SBC convention? Well, this isn't specifically the convention, but you can go watch at the

04:09

Church Reform Initiative on their YouTube channel, the first part of the documentary on Faith Baptist Church in Knightdale, North Carolina, and how

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Summit Church, where J .D. Greer's a pastor, tried to essentially gain their property, take their assets and so forth.

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And it's a whole windy story, so check it out if you want the details on that. But part one dropped, it's called

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Defending the Faith, or sorry, Defending Faith Baptist, part one. And so we'll see if that,

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I don't know if that'll make a lot of waves. I did have someone ask me about making a resolution from the floor concerning these kinds of situations.

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So, but other than what I've said last week about the SBC, no, it's, I think it's already starting actually, right, today,

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I think it's starting today. And I think Wednesday's the day when there'll be a lot of, Tuesday and then

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I think mostly the Wednesday are gonna be the hot days. So we'll see what happens. I haven't paid any attention, so I hope some of the explanation includes catching up on what actually happened.

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I will try to catch you up on what's happening in California. I've only seen a guy on a bike with a Mexican flag and that's it.

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Yeah, it was more than that. It wasn't just a guy on a bike. Since New York is a commie state, asked Steve, should

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I leave my guns home if I come to the retreat? Hmm, it really depends.

05:32

I'm not, I can't give advice on this kind of thing, especially live on the air. That's not really a kind of question

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I can answer. You'd have to check the laws. I don't know what kinds of guns you're planning on bringing depending on the kind of gun you're bringing and the kind of permit you have, it may or may not be acceptable.

05:48

So I think it's totally fine if it's illegal and that's all I'll say about that. All right, well, we are gonna get into this issue of the

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California riots. And then I will at the end, talk a little bit about this. Sadly, Jennifer Lyle passed away.

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Some of you don't know who that is. I will explain that, it's SBC related stuff. So I'm gonna keep that for the end.

06:11

But let's start here with the podcast. We're gonna, I'll give you a little update about what actually has happened.

06:19

This is an article from the Daily Signal, worse and more violent LA riots escalate. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said on the

06:26

Sunday evening press conference that the violence was getting increasingly worse and more violent. The violence that I've seen, he says it's disgusting.

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It's escalated. So you've had people with hammers, he said, breaking the bollards behind the federal building and taking the rocks, if you will, or pieces of concrete and throwing them at officers.

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We've had liquid of who knows what description thrown at officers. There's no limit to what they're doing to our officers.

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These are LAPD guys too, right? This isn't just ICE. This is the general rioters have come out.

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The people that are attracted to this kind of thing, probably regardless of the cause have come out. And there's a lot of tension in Los Angeles right now as a result of this.

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What happened initially, I don't think this article gets into it, just talks about the Democrats who are condemning

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ICE and saying that ICE isn't, Trump's inflammatory, he's escalating the tensions.

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But ICE essentially had some approved by court, so there were court orders to, and I don't know what business this was.

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There is apparently a business that was involved in some high level illegal activity.

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And it sounds like potentially drug trafficking and human trafficking and these kinds of things.

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Anyway, ICE raided and it was the ICE raid that was, like I said, approved that has sparked the anti -ICE demonstrations and now a general lawlessness.

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That's what started it. And I think that was Saturday morning, if I'm not mistaken, when this started. Here's an article from the

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Epoch Times, Los Angeles on edge after three days of riots. You can see the picture here and these are, what are these?

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It says Waxmo, Waymo taxis burn near Metropolitan Detention Center of downtown

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Los Angeles. So this is where I think some of the migrants, illegal migrants were taken. And these, unfortunately these taxis, what did they ever do?

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I guess they were just sitting there and they got attacked and now they're burning. And so you got, and there's a line of,

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I guess, ICE agents there. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass blamed ICE operations arresting illegal immigrants.

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This is 22 minutes ago, an update from Jackson Rickman at Epoch Times for stoking the riots in her city.

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We do not know, she said, where and when the next raids will be. That is the concern because people in the city have a rapid response network.

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If they see ICE, they go out and they protest. And so it's just a recipe for pandemonium. And that is completely unnecessary.

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She continued, if you dial back time and go to Friday. So Friday's where it started, I guess. If immigration raids had not happened here, we would not have the disorder.

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So a lot of it now is trying, it's a spectacle. It's a media spectacle. You have all these images and normally,

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I mean, normal people, again, right? I'm not the expert on normal people, but I guess I'm making myself that today with the comments on the retreat and now this.

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Normal people don't want cars burning. They don't want police cars attacked.

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They don't want civil unrest in the streets. They just kind of want to be able to get to work or if they have recreational activities, get to those.

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They don't want to have the hassle. They don't like seeing disorder. It makes everyone anxious, right? And so now that you have this spectacle, the question is how to politically navigate it, which is what it is.

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It will die down eventually, but who's gonna take the blame for it?

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Who's going to be politically hurt through this? And if you blame

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Trump for it, then you'd have to say these raids were wrong.

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They should never have happened. And that's the whole issue with it. It's Donald Trump. Of course, the

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Republicans want to blame the Democrats. There's some creative ways they are trying to do that, which I will show you one of them, my goodness.

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But of course, the obvious thing is that this would have never been a problem in the first place, Mayor Bass, if you weren't allowed in your city, in your lawless city, it wasn't this sanctuary city harboring illegal migrants.

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And those who have committed actual crimes, and I don't say actual as if being an illegal migrant is not a crime, it is, but I mean, crimes that would be a crime whether you were an illegal migrant or not, letting those things just happen and continue to happen, that might be the pretext for having

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ICE come in. You wouldn't have those problems if you just kept the city the way it should be kept, but they're not doing that.

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So it depends at what point you, I guess the timeline where you want to come in and say, this is the problem or that's the problem.

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But ultimately, obviously I agree with the general consensus from the conservative media, this is a problem because Democrats made it a problem.

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Democrats thought they could have majorities and they wanted to help the quote unquote victims and impoverished and illegal migrants who don't have anywhere to go.

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And of course the toxic empathy came out and this has been going on for years and it's coming to a head now.

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And it's been coming to a head for quite some time, but it's really coming to a head now. This is an article from the

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Epoch Times, what to know about the ICE protests. I would suggest, just go check that out if you want more on what's going on.

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There's the famous guy with the Mexican flag on a mask on top of one of these vehicles.

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And this has become escalated too, because Donald Trump of course did call out the

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National Guard. And I think about, what was it? How many? 2000, yeah, troops from California National Guard.

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And Gavin Newsom is irate about this. He doesn't think Trump went through the proper approval process, but here's looters.

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I mean, he already got, like I said, these are the people who come out no matter what protest is happening. They're just going to come out and be part of it because that's who they are.

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So this is a scene at a gas station. So, and then since I didn't show it before, but I described it, there's the guy with the flag.

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So, I don't have the link. You can just check it out at the Epoch Times. I think it's on the front page.

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I of course have a subscription. So I don't know if this is behind a paywall, but it'll give you a basic synopsis.

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So what I've already told you though, is basically I think what you need to know. We're going to get into the legality of it though, and what the conservative approach should be.

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Someone asked the title, what to know about the ICE protests in LA as Trump deploys National Guard. That's the name of the article. Okay, let's talk about, let's take a step back for a moment and talk about this.

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So, I'm going to give you a little personal background and also just a little bit of like constitutional and legal background.

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We don't need a whole lot. And then we'll apply some principles. Sound good? I did advertise this as the, this is going to be the most conservative take that you hear on this particular subject.

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Of course, I was just putting it out there on X because that's what you do on X, right? A .D. Robles advised me to just have fun on X.

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Don't take it too seriously. So, that's what I did. But I do think this probably will be the most conservative take you hear on it because I am dedicated to honoring states' rights and federalism and our constitution as much as possible.

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But I also see that in many ways we're post -constitutional. And so, I'm navigating these things.

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I think a lot of people are trying to figure out what paradigm we live in and how to navigate it. And my take, well, what

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I'm going to tell you is different than anything, at least I've seen. So far, it doesn't mean that I'm unique, but I haven't, what

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I've seen coming from people are the predictable guys who are more like West Coast Straussian types who think that Gavin Newsom's this rebellious

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Jefferson Davis type character and Donald Trump needs to go full Lincoln and just go in there and basically invade

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California, right? You have that, some people think that's the most conservative thing, the most forced, the most violence, the most, like that's the conservative thing to do, right?

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And then of course, there are those who think that this is, like all those are arrangement with the states, the federal arrangement should be honored so that California should be

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California. But if they really don't want to be part of this country, they should just secede, they should just leave, right? Like the very strong decentralizers, they think that's the most conservative thing.

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And I'm not sure either one of those is actually in the paradigm we are in right now. And I'll explain why as we get into the podcast.

15:06

Okay, so let's start this, let's start this way. I'm looking at the questions here,

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I don't see many. Feel free as we continue, I'll probably check this periodically. So feel free to leave questions or comments in the section there where you can do that if you are streaming on YouTube, or I think

15:24

I can see X and also Facebook. So, all right, let's start here.

15:31

Let's talk about principle real quick. So the constitution of the United States, introduction, right?

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The initial preamble, we the people of the United States, okay? You know anything about the preamble?

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You know that this is not talking about people in a broad sense, like in the aggregate, this is talking about the people of the several states.

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So emphasis on United States. It was the committee on style that wanted it to be people because it's shorter.

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But if we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, okay?

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Number one, more perfect than what? Well, more perfect than the union they had before under the Articles of Confederacy.

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More perfect than the union they had where the government, the centralized government, the general government, they don't have the power to tax, where it was more vulnerable to things like Shays' Rebellion.

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That kind of more perfect union, something that works better for us. To establish justice, to ensure domestic,

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I don't think that requires a lot. So that would be include insurrections internally, that would include external threats, establish justice.

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Ensure domestic tranquility, okay? So we're talking about trade, regulating trade.

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But more than that, it's also just making sure that we have a beneficial arrangement for all the parties of this contract.

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Provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the

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United States of America. So ourselves and our posterity, that's us and our kids and their kids and their kids, right in this line.

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So here's the thing, when you look at this, this is not law, this is just a preamble, okay? So this is, the rest of the document explains exactly where the barriers are, what can and can't be done, and how to separate the different, where power is, where sovereignty rests and that kind of thing.

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Not just ultimate sovereignty, but where that sovereignty, that authority, I should say, is vested. And it's vested in three branches, of course, and there's different authorities that these three branches have.

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And then of course, there's the states, which have far more authority under the original contract. Now, the thing to notice about this, and the reason

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I bring it up is, it's supposed to achieve a certain end. One of the things I've seen in some political conservative circles is this idea that the constitution is somehow this divine document.

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I have literally heard people say it's inspired by God. Now you could, in a loose sense,

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I suppose, say the men who were drafting this were thinking about scripture quite a bit and trying to balance principles that they gleaned from scripture.

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But I'm sorry, it's not inspired by God in any other sense. It is not a mystical, or it's not like a sacred scroll.

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This is a document that serves a very practical purpose. And that purpose is outlined in the preamble.

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As soon as the document isn't suited for serving that purpose, or as soon as elements of that document can't suit that purpose, you have to start what's called the amendment process.

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And if there's so much gridlock, and you have no way, no mechanism by which to actually salvage this arrangement, then you're in a real spot because it's no longer actually suiting the reason for the purpose for why it exists.

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And I think a lot of political conservative circles, the constitution is revered in such a way that this has become the end in and of itself, not a means to an end, the preamble is the end.

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You wanna make sure that you have a society with tranquility, common defense, general welfare, blessings of liberty to ourselves, our posterity.

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That's the goal. But when that's not happening, then you have to ask, so what's the document doing?

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Obviously, I'm not saying the document itself as a piece of paper failed, but obviously it's supposed to bind humans.

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And if the humans, this is a letter from our ancestors. This is our ancestors telling us, this is what we expect.

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And if we've disregarded it so many times, we are to a point now where, and this is the stage that we're at in many ways, is we call it post -constitutional.

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And then you have an option. Do you try to get back to what you lost, which I'm very sympathetic to, or do you recognize we've lost it and we need a different arrangement in the paradigm we're in now because of things like, well, we don't have virtue anymore.

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The culture is different. This is, it's a bit, the scale's off. Whatever the case is, right?

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We need smaller republic. We need a different arrangement, just like the founders who crafted the

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Articles of Confederation and then crafted, not they weren't all the same group, but then crafted the constitution. They did the same thing, right?

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Because they all decided, yeah, the Articles of Confederation, which was a perpetual arrangement, supposedly, not so perpetual,

20:35

I guess, because it doesn't fulfill the tasks that we need it to fulfill. John, why are you making such arguments against the constitution?

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They're not against the constitution. They're for the constitution. They're for the reason the constitution exists, right?

20:47

And so I think this is gonna be foundational to what I say about these riots to some extent, because it gets into all this constitutional stuff, but we have to think about what applies and what doesn't in the, where we live in realville, as Rush Limbaugh used to say.

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We live in realville. We don't live in, it's really great to think that we could go back to like pre -1865 arrangement, and I wanna do everything we can to get back to states having more and more control.

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They do a better job. It's the grand experiment of one thing works in one state and it doesn't work in another state.

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You can learn from that mistake. It would be great to go back to that, but we're post that, and we don't seem to be going back in every way.

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As hard as I fight, as hard as I try, it doesn't seem like that's the trend. Now, I'm gonna keep doing what

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I'm doing. I'm for decentralization. I think localism is the key to, well, nothing. I think it's the solution to a lot of our ailments, but if things aren't reworked and if people aren't interested in localism, then you have to make do with what you have, right?

21:57

Might not have all the ingredients for the stew you want, but if that's all you got, you gotta make camper special, as my grandma would say.

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So, here's some guiding principles here, or I should say, here are some things to consider as we get into the immigration debate.

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Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4. This is in the US Constitution. So this is

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Congress, right? Congress shall have the power to establish and in a uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the

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United States. That's, this is given to Congress itself.

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Is that the one that, yeah, that is the one. Okay, really naturalization is the issue there. So, when it comes to who's a citizen, who's not a citizen of this thing we call the

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United States, this is supposed to be something that is decided by the states, not individually so that there are different rules for each state, but uniformly throughout now 50 states.

23:10

They have the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. And of course, there's been all kinds of precedents and so in development since then, and that's come to the point today where you take a citizenship class, you get a, you know, sometimes you get a green card first, but there's a process to go through in order to be a citizen.

23:32

And there's a difference, obviously, I'm not gonna get into that today between natural born citizen and a citizen.

23:40

Now, the 14th amendment of the United States constitution, which there's a really great argument to say that that's actually, that we shouldn't probably honor that just because of the way it was passed, was it even legitimate?

23:53

I will say this about that, I know the true originalists are gonna say all that, it is kind of locked into all these precedents that now, we're so far downstream from it, it's treated that way.

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So we have to deal with it, right? And the 14th amendment to the constitution says that all persons born or naturalized in the

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United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.

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So you're not just a citizen of the United States, you are also, you are forced to be a citizen of the state in which you reside, if you follow the rules.

24:30

And the rules have changed here and there, but it's Congress that's vested with this authority, it's

24:37

Congress that's vested with it. So what happened to California?

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So I bring all that up to say this, what's going on in California right now is under the purview of Congress, these aren't citizens, they are not actually supposed to be here,

24:55

Congress is the one that determines and enforces immigration law, fine. Now, let's just, we'll accept that, okay?

25:05

What happened to California? Well, you had the 1986, what in the world, Library of Congress, a

25:10

Latinx resource guide, really Library of Congress, really? We're using Latinx, all right.

25:17

Okay, well, the Library of Congress, hopefully Trump gets on, Trump, if you're listening to this podcast, your

25:23

Library of Congress for the United States has Latinx on it. 1986

25:29

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, all right. Congress enacted the Immigration Reform and Control Act, President Ronald Reagan signed it into law in November 1986, this act introduced civil and criminal penalties to employers who knowingly hired undocumented immigrants or individuals authorized to work in the

25:45

US. However, the act also offered legalization. Let me give you another word for this, amnesty, which led to lawful permanent residence and protective naturalization to undocumented migrants who entered the country prior to 1982.

26:02

We had amnesty in 1986, meaning those who are here illegally, well, we just decided, you know what?

26:11

Again, it's Congress, right? Congress is like, they get to decide this stuff, President signed it,

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Congress said, you know what? It's too much of a hassle or whatever, we're not gonna enforce this stuff, you can stay.

26:24

Now, at that time, I don't know if it says how many migrants were in the country, but not nearly as many as today, 2 million, something like that, if I remember correctly, they're all granted amnesty.

26:37

Now, a lot of people wanna blame Reagan and they say, oh, it's Reagan's the reason California went the way it is, not so fast, actually.

26:44

That happened nationwide, and yeah, Reagan was the one who signed this. 1994, this is where things really went south in California.

26:53

Now, you could say that this had already been happening and you had the 86 amnesty and all that, but this is where things flipped.

27:01

If you remember, California at one time was actually a red state, and it is not anymore, it is a permanent blue fortress.

27:13

I think the last election, 2024, was really about whether or not the whole country was gonna be that. Was the whole country gonna be

27:19

California or not? That's what I saw. And for, I mean, this is a heartbreaking thing for those who have lived there for generations.

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I go back, I think five generations, no, six generations, if I'm not mistaken, in California, on my grandma's side.

27:34

She's very proud to be from California, very heartbroken about what's happened. And for years, she would say, well, if all the good people leave, what's gonna happen?

27:41

You didn't try to get me to move back, and she doesn't do that anymore. She recognizes it is so bad in California.

27:47

And I mean, I could tell you story after story after story, because I go back there practically every year, the homelessness, the crime, just how dirty it's gotten.

27:56

I mean, I remember the 90s. I remember what it used to be. My parents remember the 60s. She remembers the 30s.

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It was a different place. And I don't know, she probably remembers the 40s. I don't know if she remembers the 30s.

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I think she was born in 1932. But anyway, she can still probably outwork me. She's like super grandma with the energy she has.

28:15

But anyway, I'll have to say, it has changed culturally in drastic ways.

28:21

You are a foreigner. That's how you feel as an English -speaking American. When I go back to Panorama City, where she lives,

28:29

I feel like I am in Mexico. In fact, when we went to Mexico, my wife and I, a few years ago,

28:38

Cancun's more like touristy and stuff, right, that area. But driving around there, I felt like, I was like, this is like California, only better.

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Like, it's cleaner. Because Los Angeles is so, it's such a dump. And you just, you feel like such an outsider.

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And even when I lived there in 2011, 2010, 2011, I felt like such an outsider.

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Like, I was the only guy who looked like me and talked like me at the gym, meaning English, meaning like a taller, white -looking guy.

29:10

I was like the local gym, but I was like, I didn't really, I didn't mind it so much because you get used to those things in a way, but like, but it was so different.

29:19

I knew it was different than it had been. Anyway, off my personal stories, I'll get back to those. 1994 is where things really changed in California.

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And it was Proposition 187. Proposition 187 was a really good idea. It was known as the

29:34

Save Our State Referendum, ballot initiative proposed by anti -immigrant organizations, which restricted undocumented immigrants from the state's public service, including access to public education and healthcare.

29:45

Now, listen, if the federal government or the general government, if they fail, if ICE isn't going and arresting people, or if you have a sanctuary city where they're just putting all kinds of wrenches in the way of the gear system and no one can actually enforce the law because the local government's gumming up the works, what happens is the state has to hold the bag.

30:11

People in Bakersfield have to pay for what's happening in Los Angeles, right? And this is what was happening.

30:17

These people need a place to go when they get sick. And education's part of that too. I forget the name of that particular court case.

30:24

That was, I think, in Texas in the nineties, but forcing illegal, legal migrants had the right to go to school.

30:32

And now that includes, in many places, free lunch. So this is a horrible, horrible problem.

30:39

So California said, you know what, forget this. They don't have access to that stuff. And it passed.

30:45

It passed. Actually, it was a pretty good majority, 59 % to 41%. And there were protests at that time, 70 ,000 to 250 ,000.

30:55

So oftentimes it's protests. They don't know how many people, but in 1995, there were all these protests. Of course, the whole thing got the, it worked its way up,

31:05

I think, to the, does it say here, which court, I think it was the

31:10

Ninth Circuit, but it got struck down. The ACLU took the case and it got struck down. And I think it was under, yeah, it was a 14.

31:18

I figured, I knew it was 14th Amendment, but it was under an equal protection clause. It got struck down.

31:23

So that was what happened to California. They could have done something about it.

31:29

Guess what? They tried to do something about it and they were foiled by the courts. And now we are downstream from this.

31:36

We are now 30 years past this point and over 30 years.

31:41

And we have, it's irreversible. 2006,

31:48

I remember this pretty vividly, actually. So 2006, the May Day marches, anyone remember this?

31:53

This is when there was a immigration reform let's see, what law, does it say what law it was?

32:02

So that would have been the Bush administration. Yeah, HR 4437, and it failed to pass.

32:11

So we never actually got the law, but it was an intensive immigration customs enforcement.

32:19

Oh, sorry, I'm reading the wrong thing here. Doo -doo -doo, what does it say?

32:25

What does it describe the law here? Yeah, I know, why am I on Wikipedia? I never should have clicked this. This is what

32:30

I get for a shoddy show prep, my apologies. I try not to use, you know,

32:36

I'm not Joe Rogan here just pulling up Wikipedia. I try to give you a better show than that. All right, so I'm not seeing where it's, it was a law that, oh, there it is.

32:48

Immigration Reform and Control Act, okay. No, that's not it either. Okay, I'm getting confused by this

32:54

Wikipedia page. It was a law that essentially cracked down though on immigration.

33:01

And let me see if I can find it within the article here. And they protested it, and I remember this so vividly because I think we had visited

33:13

California right around that time, or maybe it was right before that time. And they're like, even my grandparents were kind of like not going out to certain areas.

33:24

And they were livid though. The people there were livid because they could see clearly that people with Mexican flags were blocking streets.

33:36

And this is, it's not like you didn't see Mexican flags. You see them all the time in Los Angeles, but it was really the first time it was like in your face, protesters with American flags and protesters with Mexican flags clashing.

33:52

And so, yeah, it was, let's see. That kind of, that happened over a course of,

34:04

I think a few weeks if I'm not mistaken. Radio was talking about it all the time. It was a comprehensive,

34:11

I think it was the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, that must've been it. No, because that was the

34:17

Gang of Eight bill. That couldn't have been it. I don't know, I don't remember. I don't remember the bill. I just remember it being talked about and this was this huge thing.

34:25

And since that time, I just remember that you have this every so often in California.

34:30

It's just like, I don't know, there is this Mexican nationalistic spirit and it just manifests itself.

34:41

It's like every like five or six years, it seems like there's something, there's some kind of like thing that happens and not as intense as what's going on right now, but you have people that will start waving the

34:52

Mexican flags and getting on street corners and that kind of thing. It didn't happen as much as I don't think during the

34:58

BLM stuff, that was different. But whenever they feel like their status is challenged or their ability to send money back home and that some restriction concerning immigration, you inevitably get this.

35:13

And I point this out for one reason. And that is to just say, look, there are guys online right now trying to tell you that this is totally astroturf.

35:23

George Soros, big money, it's just all like, yeah, that could all be the case. It could all be true that there's money going into this kind of thing.

35:32

There's people that come out because they just like a protest. That's totally true, but you wouldn't have it happening if there weren't a sizable amount of people loyal to another country or countries that live in our own country, the

35:45

United States. It wouldn't happen, I'm telling you. That's the only reason it happens. That's the only way that you get as many people as you get to form the crowds that you're seeing out there is because you have people with strong loyalties to somewhere outside the

35:59

United States, Mexico being number one in Southern California. You see the Mexican flag there.

36:05

I'm telling you, you drive around Los Angeles, you will probably, unless you're counting federal buildings, you're gonna see the

36:11

Mexican flag there more than the United States flag. You feel like you're in another country. And that came home to me, especially when

36:20

I saw this last year. This is a billboard in Van Nuys. So this is where I was born. And this is the translation of what it says.

36:28

Papers in cases allegedly impossible. And you see a social security card and a permanent residency card.

36:35

And of course, a little bitty American flag, and there's a lawyer there, and it's all in Spanish. Well, people tell me, oh, this is not happening.

36:44

They're not getting social security cards. They're not getting driver's license. They're not voting. And it's like, it's not even studied.

36:50

The people on the ground, family members, friends, they all see this happening all the time.

36:56

I don't know how many testimonials I have to hear. I know it's happening. They are voting.

37:03

They are getting social security cards. They are getting driver's licenses. I can't point you to like a study on this.

37:10

People aren't collecting the information that would give you the kind of numbers you need to do this kind of thing.

37:16

It is happening though, and it's happening on a pretty large scale. And all you have to do is really live there and experience life there to figure this out.

37:28

So that's just one example for you. I could give you so many stories about all this kind of thing and what happens in that area and how they make money.

37:37

I mean, I worked with a contractor, so I know about the day laborers and the sending money back to Mexico and the things that are just ignored.

37:46

Tons of things like the food trucks. You'll see this all the time. It's really strict in Los Angeles.

37:52

They have really strict zoning. They have really strict. Actually, I like the laws they have on food.

37:58

Each restaurant is graded A, B, C, but there's this exception though. Like if you're a legal migrant and you wanna go out and do a taco stand or something, it's like, it's not a problem.

38:10

That's how it is. That's just how it is and people are used to it. You get into accidents, because this happened with my family multiple times, and you get into an accident with an illegal migrant, the police, they can't really do anything.

38:22

The insurance companies just know that there's no way to even get this person into court.

38:28

They would not even come to court. So it makes living more expensive. It makes healthcare more expensive.

38:35

Hospitals have shut down. They can't take the infrastructure that's there. The services for the city are so bad because there's a homeless problem.

38:43

It's a mess, guys, in LA. And it affects our, I mean, why wouldn't it?

38:50

This is the question I have. Why wouldn't it affect our elections? This is a complaint that people have been having for 30 years about the elections in California.

38:59

How can we trust them? How do we know that these elections are actually valid?

39:04

When you have sanctuary cities and the politicians there are dependent on these voters for their own positions, then,

39:16

I don't know. And now it's, you're a few generations into this now. So it's not just illegal migrants.

39:23

It's their children who are technically now what? United States citizens. They were born here, right? So now they're

39:28

United States citizens. And it's a mess. Maybe grandchildren in some cases now.

39:35

And their loyalties, those in some cases, are still to Mexico. That's the tradition they've been passed down.

39:42

I don't know what the solution for this is completely. I'm gonna give you some ideas, but this is a big, big problem.

39:49

Here's the demographics of Los Angeles County. 1960, and by the way,

39:56

I'm not saying this to say, oh, it's like just, you know, the only strand to look at is ethnic, you know, there's religious, there's all, but I do think this is the most important strand to look at when you're looking at migration patterns and how it impacts the city.

40:12

So in 1960, 80, almost 81 % of Los Angeles County was white, 7 .7

40:20

% black, Latino 9 .6%, and then other groups. You can see what happens, 1970, 67, 52, 1980, 1990, 40, 2032, and now today in our 2021 in Los Angeles County, population of white alone is, let's see, what's the, is it giving me a percentage?

40:45

48%. Let's see. Oh wait, no, hold on. Oh, that doesn't make any sense.

40:52

White alone, white. How are they doing? They're factoring, they're doing this a little differently here. Okay, what they're saying is that in Los Angeles, okay, this is a city.

41:03

Okay, so I'm looking at the city versus county. That's why I'm, okay. I should have pulled up a compare to apples with apples.

41:09

So this is the city. County is bigger than the city, but okay. So in the county, you would see the same trend that I'm talking about though here.

41:16

You have in 1980, it's about half white.

41:24

2020, it's only 20, almost 29%. And you can see

41:30

Hispanic or Latino going from 27 % to almost 47 % in that time, that's 2020.

41:42

And this is, I mean, these are the people that you know about. This is, these are the demographics that they're actually calculating for purposes of tabulation in the census.

41:52

So you're not seeing probably a lot of the legal stuff there. So it's a huge, huge, huge demographic shift in a very short period of time.

42:01

And obviously legal immigration also impacts this kind of thing. But there's a lot of illegal immigration going on in Los Angeles because it's a sanctuary city.

42:13

And if you go down to like San Diego, you'll find this. Go down to even like the border where Tijuana is.

42:21

And San Diego is what Los Angeles used to be like 20 years ago or 30 years ago. It's cleaner, it's because it's not a sanctuary city.

42:29

So a lot of the times people will come across the border and they just, they go around San Diego and when they can get to Los Angeles because they know they're safe there.

42:36

Los Angeles is the sanctuary city. So this, and you know, that's where I'm from initially.

42:43

So it kind of means something to me to see what's happened to it. It's just a kind of a bummer. But let's see, where do

42:51

I wanna go from here? I'll just, well, all right, a few more things and then we'll talk about solutions.

42:57

So one of the things that's going on online is there's this video being passed around of the president of Mexico talking about, what is, what's the exact word she uses?

43:10

She's, we'll mobilize. She says, we'll mobilize. And people are saying it's about the riots. It's not, it was a month ago, but it's still significant.

43:17

So what happened is in this big, beautiful bill, this tax cut, there's a 3 .5 % tax on remittances, meaning non -citizens transferring their money back to relatives and other places.

43:29

Well, this is a large part of Mexico's income. So they have people come to the United States, they're contractors, they're maids, they're whatever they end up doing.

43:38

They work construction, they send their money back to their family in Mexico. And this essentially helps the

43:46

Mexican economy and infuses money and so forth. Well, Trump is saying, no, it's a tax on that now. The president of Mexico comes out and says, hey, look, if necessary, we'll mobilize.

43:55

We don't want taxes on remittances from our fellow countrymen from the US to Mexico. Now, people are reading into this.

44:01

What does mobilize mean? I don't know, but don't pay attention to the Twitter folks who are telling you and getting tens of thousands of likes and retweets because they're telling you it means that they're activating their

44:11

Mexican shock troops or something in the US. That's not what she's saying. I don't know what she's saying exactly.

44:20

So maybe, I'll put it this way. It could be that, I guess, we'll mobilize, maybe. But it's not in reaction to what happened over the weekend.

44:26

And it doesn't necessarily mean that. But it is kind of a big deal. And it highlights the relationship that we have with Mexico, which it's basically, it's a dependency.

44:37

They depend on us for sending money back. We depend on them.

44:43

And our dependence is not a healthy dependence. It's more of a corporate dependence. And certain industries depend on them for sending workers who tend to be low -skilled and low -wage.

44:57

And they're satisfied living in situations that most Americans wouldn't be content living in.

45:03

So obviously, there's a mutual business thing going on here. But is it good for the country as a whole, our country?

45:10

And no, it's not. Is it even good for Mexico? If you have someone coming, like a father, let's say, who has a husband, and he's coming, and he's living here, and he's sending all the money back home, and he's separated from his family, how good is it for them, socially speaking?

45:23

That's another question. Not to mention all the drugs, and all the trafficking, and all the other stuff that happens.

45:31

All right, so here's where we're gonna talk about solutions to this a little bit. This has become a political football.

45:38

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, daring Tom Homan to arrest him, because Tom Homan's saying, basically,

45:45

California's obstructing the enforcement of federal laws on immigration.

45:52

And then Trump coming out and saying, yeah, I think Tom Homan should arrest him. Which is like,

45:58

I was like, oh, he's Trump, he's Trump. So I don't think it's a good idea for a few reasons, but the main one being a political one, that Gavin Newsom, that's what he wants to have happen, right,

46:11

I mean, that would, the guy, I think, wants to be president, and a high -profile thing like that would make him the anti -Trump figure that I think he wants to be.

46:20

But here's what he did. He put out there a request to rescind the order of the

46:28

National Guard. And I'll read some of this to you. He says, and this is to Pete Hegseth, that section 12406 of the, what act, what is this?

46:42

The Department of Defense Security for the

46:48

Protection of the Department of Homeland Security functions, right? So this is part of the U .S. Code here.

46:54

It states that the presidency may call into federal service members and units of the National Guard of any state in such numbers as he considers necessary to one, propel an invasion by a foreign nation.

47:06

Now, I think Trump might be able to make that case. I don't know. Two, suppress a rebellion against the authority of the government of the

47:15

United States. He might be able to make that case too. Execute the laws of the United States when the president's unable to do so with regular forces.

47:22

Right, and then the section further states that orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the state.

47:30

And he's claiming, no one called my office. No one called my office, and therefore you can't do this.

47:36

Now, is there precedent, have there been times when governors or presidents have done this without the governor's consent?

47:43

Yes. Supposedly, what I looked up, and I don't know if this is completely accurate. I can't, I don't know, I can't think of one since then, but in 1965, it was

47:53

Governor Lyndon Baines Johnson sent the Alabama National Guard into Alabama during the whole like civil rights marches and stuff on what they call

48:05

Bloody Sunday, and trying to ensure the protection of civil rights protesters and so forth.

48:12

So this, and this was done under the Insurrection Act. I believe that was the justification that was used.

48:19

And presumably, Trump could do the same thing. He could use the Insurrection Act of, I think it's 1808, to make the same kind of argument that that's what you have going on here, right?

48:30

Like these people who are opposing us, they're likely not even citizens. This is a, they're blocking, not just blocking traffic, they're attacking federal agents, federal officers.

48:43

And this comes down to one of those federal or you could say general consolidated power of all 50 states in Washington, DC versus against the power of the state of California.

49:01

And this creates a problem for conservatives. What do you do in that case? What do you do? Aren't we like small government states rights guys?

49:07

Aren't we about the federal union and separation of powers? But also we don't want our laws just not rejected and rogue governments just doing what they can.

49:18

This influences our national elections, doesn't it? I mean, how many electoral college votes does California have?

49:23

Like 52, 56, something like that. I mean, they're gonna lose some, but they have a significant amount of electoral votes and this influences the greater good of the entire country.

49:35

Remember what I told you earlier about the constitution of the United States and the preamble.

49:41

I mean, does this ensure the domestic tranquility? What's the goal here? And this is where I think we have to, we have to consider the actual situation that we are in in 2025.

49:58

We are downstream from a whole lot of bad policies that got us here. It's not gonna be figured out in a weekend.

50:06

There's a few options, but none of them are, it's good, better, best. That's how you have to rate them.

50:13

There is no perfect option here. There is going to be a consequence for everything you do.

50:18

If you're Donald Trump in this case, and you have to weigh the greater good of the people that you serve. That's the bottom line.

50:26

Victor Davis Hanson went out there and wrote this ridiculous sort of blog almost on X.

50:34

I'm not gonna read the whole thing. Let me read you a little bit of it. Why is governor Newsom going full Jefferson Davis?

50:40

What triggered the American civil war were state officials who refused to honor federal law.

50:46

No, it's not. It's more like federal officials who refused to honor federal law.

50:56

But anyway, instead he boasted of their open defiance of Washington. Boasted, I don't know about that.

51:03

I don't think he boasted. I think he thought that Washington was being openly defiant. That precedent apparently is the incendiary model for the weird but dangerous recent behavior of an increasingly unhinged

51:16

California governor, Gavin Newsom. Yeah, of course, I'm sure Gavin Newsom, he's reading a lot of Jefferson Davis.

51:21

That's where he's getting this, right? You can't make this up. He is currently supporting the often violent protesters in Los Angeles and their resistance to federal officials enforcement of immigration laws.

51:31

Newsom claimed that Trump's use of ice to detain those here illegally in the US was reckless, chaotic and eroding trust. Does he think that his own rhetoric is creating calm and building trust by opposing the lawful enforcement of federal statutes?

51:42

Or is he following the baleful model of arch Confederate rebel, Jefferson Davis? He does this throughout the whole article.

51:50

He'll say something pretty rational and then he just couples it with stuff like, I'll go to the ending here.

51:56

He goes, let's see. He talks about,

52:03

I mean, I agree with him about the effects of immigration. But he goes, states do not have the legal authority to override the federal government by arbitrarily withholding federally warranted income taxes from its

52:13

US citizens. In 1861, such defiance almost destroyed the US. Right, but in 1861, there was no income tax,

52:20

Victor Davis Hanson, you know that. In 1861, there were tariffs and there was an argument about whether these tariffs themselves were constitutional.

52:29

And in the event of secession, which is what that was about, the federal government was no longer, well, it wasn't a federal government of the states that seceded.

52:37

So it could not, as Lincoln says in his first inaugural, he couldn't collect the duties. So these are not parallels one bit, but you have guys like that, like Victor Davis Hanson marching out there to make these ridiculous comparisons.

52:50

And it's all just to vilify. It's all just to like, you know, like the South is terrible. And so, and what they did in the 1860s.

52:58

So they're like, let's just compare that to what Governor Gavin Newsom's doing. Even though he's not using the same logic, he's not interested in seceding.

53:05

I wish he were. And I wish, and this is what I was gonna say. I wish Victor Davis Hanson would have said this.

53:14

Why is Governor, I hope that Governor Gaston will, Governor, I don't know why

53:20

I'm merging his name. Governor Gavin Newsom will go full Jefferson Davis.

53:26

That's what I wish he would have said. I hope that Governor Gavin Newsom will go full

53:31

Jefferson Davis, because you know what? If he would go full Jefferson Davis, then guess what?

53:37

You, California can deal with California's problems and California can stay California. If this is what

53:43

California wants, if this is the government of California, then they can do their thing and they don't bother the rest of the country.

53:51

Now, as someone who's native Californian, I don't care for that in every sense. Part of me hopes that there's a liberation army that comes through and just kind of cleans house, right?

54:02

And restores California and liberate, like Trump even tweeted yesterday, liberate Los Angeles, right?

54:07

And it gets my blood stirring a little bit. Yeah, honestly, that is, if you wanna go full originalist, that is the solution to these problems.

54:17

You have a situation where there's a state that is just so out of, so out there, it's doing its own thing and it's not in congruence with the interests of the rest of the states.

54:31

So maybe some of them, like, you know, maybe Oregon and Washington can join California. Maybe there's, you know, the

54:37

Northeast can join Canada or something. I think we have become so different.

54:43

And that's one of the huge things that is different from 1787. You have a country now that it was different back then and had regions, but boy, did they have, we have regions today.

54:55

We have so many differences, not just with immigration, but also other moral issues.

55:03

I mean, abortion, the transgender and all the gender nonsense stuff, just how we think about taxes and money and defense and like there, go from Alabama or Mississippi to California or Seattle or something.

55:20

And it's like coming to a different country that somewhat speaks the same language, right?

55:25

There's similarities, but they have developed very differently. And so that's an originalist solution to this.

55:32

Maybe California should just be California, but here's the thing, they're not interested in that. Gavin Newsom's not interested in seceding.

55:38

California talks about this every now and then. There's referendums that come up to like, or it's a split

55:43

California off. It would make sense, right? If Northern California was Jefferson or some plans are like split it into like three or four different parts based on region and culture.

55:54

It's a huge state, it would make sense. The scale is so different. The population is so increased. Los Angeles is, population of Los Angeles alone is bigger than,

56:03

I think it's like 15 states in the country. It is huge.

56:09

And yet the rest of California has to suffer because of the decisions Los Angeles makes.

56:15

The cities, New York City, similar thing going on. The rest of New York has to suffer with whatever New York City wants.

56:21

What do you do in these cases? Well, I mean, I'm telling you the common sense things to do, right? The common sense things are for the sake of peace, you partition off those regions that want to go downhill very fast, let them do their thing.

56:37

And then you are protected in the region you grew up in. And obviously that's not gonna be helpful for people that live in Los Angeles, but it spares the rest of us, the fate of Los Angeles.

56:47

It's not happening though. It's not happening. And I would say that would be the more of like originalist, constitutional kind of remedy for these kinds of things, of course.

56:59

But what you have now is you have basically an enemy rogue government, not just the

57:07

Los Angeles, but the state of California that are making the rest of the country suffer by importing through their borders, which obviously once you get into California and get into other places, importing into their borders millions and millions of illegal migrants.

57:25

Estimates are it's like up to 2 .2 million those are the official counts. It's way more than, it's like the accounts you hear for the country where they're like, well, there's like 12 million here.

57:33

It's like 12, what are you talking about? It's probably like 30 million here, right? Like it's,

57:38

I don't know how exactly these numbers are calculated. And it's an incredibly difficult thing to calculate.

57:46

How do you find out the number of people who live in the shadows, right? That's the hard part of it, you can't. So a lot of it is what you see and as you live life, what you notice.

57:56

So I think it's far greater than that having traveled a lot and just, especially in recent years, man, places that you never,

58:06

Boise, Idaho, right? Wisconsin in the middle of nowhere. And it's like, where did these people come from?

58:12

How did they get here? Well, obviously there's assistance going on, but you have rogue element and it's most identifiable in a place like Los Angeles.

58:23

How do you treat Los Angeles then? That's the question. They're an enemy in a sense.

58:29

That's the way they're behaving at least, right? Like they are, and they've been doing this for decades.

58:35

They've been acting like an enemy. How do you treat enemies? This is where, as I told you,

58:42

I would have the conservative take on this. The conservative take on this is you find the constitutional remedies, but when you can't find them, because we are so downstream from so many problems that should have been rectified years ago that weren't, and we have abused the constitution so much, and we don't have respect for law and order, and we have different visions, then you can't find a remedy then.

59:09

You have to either amend, and what would you even do? Like maybe a vote of all the states at a certain level, you create a mechanism for kicking a state out, or maybe the state like loses its state status and becomes a territory again.

59:23

I don't really know. I mean, that's a mechanism no one's talking about because it's not even realistic.

59:30

It's not gonna pass, right? You have to deal in real bill. What's gonna happen in reality? In reality, you let this kind of thing continue, and we lose the country that we live in, not just California, we lose it all.

59:44

And Trump is stalling it, but he's gotta figure it out, and he's got three years to do it. So what's the greater good in this case?

59:52

Greater good is, and I hate to say it because I don't want it at all, but you have to go in and you have to clean house.

01:00:01

That fulfills the purpose of why the constitution was put in place to begin with. And maybe it's time to just admit that the constitution is kind of like the

01:00:11

King of England. We have a respect for it, but it's a written constitution that we're not really operating by anymore.

01:00:18

We ourselves have an unwritten constitution, just like the British do. Or like the King of England, it's an archaic thing that doesn't actually matter as much, but we still tip our hats to it because it's part of our tradition, and it's for the headwaters from which all these other things flow.

01:00:33

So it's very important to our identity and our history, but you have to practically look at things.

01:00:39

I'm not saying what I want, I'm saying just what is. We don't live in a country that actually honors what the founder's vision was for this document.

01:00:48

So does the document matter? That's the question that needs to be asked. And for the people that wanna find a constitutional remedy,

01:00:55

I would just ask where, where's the remedy? I'm not seeing it. California is not interested in leaving.

01:01:01

They're not interested in rectifying this problem. This problem is going to affect everyone else. You gotta come up with something.

01:01:08

And if everything else is dysfunctional, then it's gonna end up being the one person who is functional has to make the decision.

01:01:16

And that right now is Donald Trump. Even the state governments with decent governors, supposedly decent, aren't doing what they could be doing, it seems like.

01:01:25

I mean, you got three years to push through. The federal government and the national government is not gonna stop you if you assist

01:01:31

ICE and you just, like Governor Greg Abbott was doing or talking about doing at least before Trump was in, right?

01:01:38

He was going after the Biden administration, saying, we're gonna enforce the immigration stuff. He could be doing that still at times 10 right now.

01:01:48

But it's like, it seems like the state governments are just kind of coasting. They're letting the Donald Trump and Donald Trump take care of it.

01:01:54

And that's not a good sign. This is the time that state governors have to stand up more than they ever have because they have more opportunity to do so.

01:02:02

So these are obviously just my opinions, but that's what I think has to happen. Trump does have to, he has to liberate

01:02:09

California and then restore what we can of our founding vision and principles and all those things.

01:02:18

But you can't, if you don't have a country, you can't restore any of those things. The constitution is meaningless if you don't have a country anymore.

01:02:26

And that comes first, having a country. So I know this is gonna rub some people wrong, but that's how

01:02:35

I'm thinking about this at this point. It's such a problem and it's been going on for so long.

01:02:41

This is the one time we have an opportunity to do something about it. So I am persuadable if people, in the words of Luther, show me scripture in plain reason or one or the other, but I'm pretty convinced that nothing but force is going to be able to actually solve these issues.

01:02:59

You have to have a force that's capable of meeting the force that is causing the problem.

01:03:06

So people aren't just going to wake up to Jeffersonian principles automatically and leave.

01:03:12

California threatens this kind of thing. They're not gonna do it. They just, they'd never have done it. I don't think they have any intention.

01:03:18

It's all political fanfare and they all want to control the whole pie. They want control of DC.

01:03:25

The Democrats aren't interested in, the only time they ever like do federalism and state's rights and all that kind of stuff is for things like marijuana.

01:03:35

Like they do their left -wing causes, but then it's always to like, with the goal of like pushing it on the national level.

01:03:43

They want it to be across the board. They're universalists on everything. They don't believe in localism.

01:03:49

They'll just use it as a mechanism to get what they want. And what I'm suggesting, I suppose, is like you're gonna have to use maybe some state power to get back to an actual localist vision, right?

01:04:03

I actually just wrote this whole chapter on localism for this book on the new Christian right. And one of the things,

01:04:10

I didn't put it in there, but I contacted the editor and I said, you know, I've been thinking about this. I don't know if I should put it in, but the only way to really get back to this in our paradigm might be, it might not be organic.

01:04:22

That's what I've been pushing as much as possible. I'm still gonna push it. Like, because I think that it is possible if everyone just starts valuing their local area and forget about DC.

01:04:31

We're gonna thumb our nose at them. Like you could have this happen, but it doesn't seem to be happening, right?

01:04:37

So it may end up being a cesarean kind of figure that has to arise to kind of set the

01:04:43

Republic back in order so that things can event get back to that point. That may be just reality.

01:04:51

And I don't like it. I don't like it, but we have to deal with reality and the conditions that we're in.

01:04:57

All right, so I'll take questions, comments, cries of outrage. In a war, the only sure defense is offense and the efficiency of the offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it,

01:05:07

General Patton. Yeah, good quote. As a Californian, I will say there are legitimate peaceful protesters, but they are overshadowed by riots and the peaceful protesters won't call out the rioters.

01:05:17

That's on them. Shutting down Soros means taking down Gates and a few others.

01:05:24

I think if you shut down Soros, you won't stop this kind of stuff, to be honest with you. This stuff, I'm telling you, it is driven primarily by the fact that you imported a bunch of people who are loyal to somewhere else.

01:05:34

That's what is happening. A blatant out of context extract that I believe shows the heart of God.

01:05:41

Psalm 33, 12, that blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Okay, well, thank you, James.

01:05:47

John, the president needs to stop all federal funding to California. Oh, I didn't mention that.

01:05:52

I probably should have. Yeah, that's another mechanism I suppose Trump could just use. I mean, is it manipulative?

01:05:59

Is it kind of like, we don't like it when the left does it and stuff? Yeah, we don't. I remember during the

01:06:04

Roy Moore stuff, that was one of the things, like the threats of we're gonna, you keep these 10 commandments there, we'll take away federal money.

01:06:11

It's like, it's so dirty, it's so terrible. It's not the way our system should be, right? And I want to go back.

01:06:18

I wanna go back to the way it should be, but we're dealing with, it's like a life and death struggle scenario for the future of our country.

01:06:27

If we don't get the cancer out, and I'm not saying people are cancer, I'm saying though the policies, or effectively they are policies of having a borderless zone, then you might as well just say sayonara, literally sayonara to the country.

01:06:47

All right. Don't these rioters have a job to go to? Not necessarily.

01:06:55

In the nationwide plan protest for the Saturday, June 14th, it looks like it'll be big. We'll see. I keep hearing those things.

01:07:01

It really depends. If they get some shots of ice beating someone, I mean, you'll have like Rodney King type stuff, so maybe.

01:07:09

The liberation can't happen with only badges and hired hands. The locals will have to pledge their treasure and sacred honors.

01:07:16

That's an interesting thought. I think there's local support, to be honest with you already.

01:07:24

I think there's enough Americans that, I mean, there was even a poll, I think it was CNN poll, that showed that the majority in California are for the ice deportations or whatever.

01:07:37

I don't know if it was California or the whole country, but anyway. I think there is enough support out there, but there's a lot of intimidation to go out and get involved.

01:07:47

I did see there were people actually out there trying, but they were outnumbered, trying to counter the protesters.

01:07:52

And I saw that in the May Day protests back in 2006. You had these Americans go out there with American flags and everything.

01:08:00

And it was like, they would get outnumbered. And I don't know, conservatives don't tend to do the activist thing as much.

01:08:07

It's just not who they are. They're law and order people, right? And maybe sometimes they think they're operating in an older paradigm than they actually are.

01:08:15

It's probably gotten worse than they really think, but that's just how it is. If we are months from the end of days, no political efforts are called for.

01:08:24

Okay, well, that's one perspective, I guess. Joel Webbin thinks there's 50 million illegals in the

01:08:33

United States. I do not know where he's getting, I've never heard an estimate that high.

01:08:39

Doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, but that's, I was saying, what did

01:08:45

I say, 30? So I think, I don't know, it could be.

01:08:51

I don't wanna embellish it though. Let's see, silent majority stood up in 2016.

01:08:58

Y 'all forgot about us. I think the y 'all means Trump, I don't know. 11 million times four to five babies per household in 30 years.

01:09:08

Oh, don't, please don't do this to me. I think they're between 30 and 40 million, says

01:09:16

Eric. Yeah, I don't, the problem is they're in the shadows. So how can you tell? It's very hard, it's very hard.

01:09:22

The number, most conservative commentators I've heard that talk about this will say like 20 to 30.

01:09:28

So, I mean, is that where I'm getting my number? Yes, but also driving around the

01:09:33

United States and just seeing the populations in these various places. I can visibly see it.

01:09:39

I can visibly see it as I go, the changes. At least I could. I mean, it's been stalled for now with Trump in office, but it's still, like my brother tells me in Tennessee, he's a school teacher there, he teaches

01:09:50

ESL, and he's like, they're not going away. Like all these raids and stuff, they're going after criminals and high profile stuff.

01:09:56

The people that are here though, they're not going anywhere, they're still here. So, John, glad you finally said it.

01:10:05

First time I heard it, the constitution is like the King of England. This is concerning though, because historically speaking, I don't know what the end of the sentence is there, but yeah,

01:10:14

I have said that before. I have made that, I think it was the Queen of England when I said it last time. The immigrants are clumped, not many in Nebraska.

01:10:22

All right, you've heard it here first, go to Nebraska. If you want to get away from those kinds of problems and you're in Los Angeles, go to Nebraska.

01:10:30

And all the Nebraskans said, no, wait, no, don't do that. I was thinking about last night, would

01:10:37

I give up everything? Oh, we got the Iceman. I thought you were great in Top Gun, Iceman.

01:10:45

Carlos Mazda says, well, the 50 million number is coming from X, like Laura Loomer. Oh, then I don't trust it, sorry.

01:10:51

Saying there's 67 million? Laura Loomer says, I don't think so guys,

01:10:58

I don't think so. It would be coming from X. It's smart to be skeptical about X.

01:11:04

I have seen more fake news on X coming from conservative quote unquote sources or the right sources than I have anywhere else.

01:11:12

Facebook is a different kind of, they both have their embellishments, but even this morning I have to like fact check everything

01:11:18

I see on X. Cause like I was taken in, I thought the Mexican president was like, I bought into it at first.

01:11:26

I'm like, oh my goodness, the president of Mexico is going to activate some kind of like force they, or network they have here in the

01:11:32

United States. And then I went to the actual speech from a month ago. It has nothing to do with that. And I was like, okay guys, you knew it when you posted that.

01:11:40

You just knew you'd get engagement and stoke fears. All right. DC is foreign country, not part of America.

01:11:48

We are the people of the Republic. So here's the cultural reality, right? And then there's the issue with power.

01:11:55

So the cultural reality is this. Cultural reality is we have, we probably have like 15 or so broad regions in the

01:12:05

United States that are unique and should, and culturally similar enough that they could probably be self -governing.

01:12:14

And they could, and they should probably, I don't know what this would even look like, but they would be able to handle a lot of the matters that the central government is handling currently.

01:12:26

And as the great sort continues, this is actually increasing that, not decreasing. It is running roughshod over some cultural things, but it's also enshrining some cultural things, especially political differences.

01:12:40

So with that, that means you basically have this alliance that is held together by this strong force in DC of all these very disparate cultural sectors, these regions.

01:12:53

And this is where it's not just like, it's not just race. It's not just religion. It's not, it's actually a whole host of factors that go into this.

01:13:02

So if you were to like segment off Southern California and, or in the case of Los Angeles, you could just probably like make

01:13:11

Los Angeles its own thing and make that like its own sort of autonomous, not autonomous zone, but like its own state or its own region, it would be more peaceful.

01:13:26

You would be able to help solve some of these problems in a way. If other people don't have to pay for the poor decisions of people who are in certain regions, less responsible regions.

01:13:37

But the problem is the power dynamic. The power emanates from Washington and that keeps getting stronger and stronger and stronger.

01:13:45

And there's really, it doesn't seem like there's much that can be done about it. Our president gets four years, he's hamstrung everything he tries to do.

01:13:55

I mean, the guys who say like, let's make him be Caesar. He can just be a dictator or Protestant Franco or whatever.

01:14:01

You know, that's, people freak out because they're like, what about the precedent? What would the left do?

01:14:06

And I feel that myself. Like, I don't, that is not a universal arrangement and it is not an arrangement

01:14:12

I would want for any length of time. The only way I can see anything like that working though is you have a very virtuous leader who dies on his sword, who ends up going in there, absorbing all the power of the bureaucratic state and all the things that are gonna come against it.

01:14:33

He uses the mechanism of the guns of the federal government, essentially. The mechanism of the federal government is turned against all of those things.

01:14:42

He completely rewires it and then dissolves it. Sets up a more regional kind of localist governing structure and then just dissolves it.

01:14:55

How do you do that though? Four years, like, right? So these are the, we are going back to like the political drawing board that the founding fathers themselves, when they were trying to create a suitable arrangement for the country that they had at that time.

01:15:10

We are now arriving into a similar spot where we live in a different country downstream, similar in some ways, different in many other ways.

01:15:19

And we now need to look at what kind of suitable arrangement exists for us and trying to take the best we can from what we've learned in our own traditions, but realizing we're not operating by our own traditions even now.

01:15:33

It's reality. Susie Dow says every state should cover the cost of their federal elected representative salary, insurance expenses, retirement, everything associated with them being in DC.

01:15:48

Yeah, I don't want to misrepresent him, but that's what Andrew Isker was saying about the bill. We need to make

01:15:53

Trump an emperor. Yeah, I get nervous about that stuff. I'm going to be honest. Like I'm not, this is what makes me, one of the things that sort of makes me outside the camp,

01:16:03

I guess, so to speak, of some of the new right stuff going on. Like I'm not giddy about that stuff. I don't do the mean that says more on that stuff.

01:16:12

I'm not the kind of guy to just, like I mourn when that happens.

01:16:18

Like I can see the necessities for things like that, but I mourn when it happens. Obviously what

01:16:23

I want is for there to be good, a good governor in California who will do what he should do and they can work in tandem, but we don't have it.

01:16:32

So what are you going to do, right? And then the mayor would be inhibiting things. And we're past the point in California of, oh, it's going to get so bad that people are going to wake up.

01:16:41

That's what you keep hearing. Even my members of my family were hoping this for years.

01:16:46

Like it's going to get so bad here. Eventually there's this point that comes that everyone just wakes up and then we'll really solve things that never happened.

01:16:55

It just gets worse and worse and worse. And the dependency class grows and grows and grows and the corruption grows and the illegal migrants coming increase and they have children.

01:17:09

And now those children are Americans and now California isn't what California was. And all it took was 30 years.

01:17:16

There are two states. One is a paper state. One is a constitutional state with its own constitution.

01:17:21

The state you're born in is your constitution. Look up, I don't know what this is.

01:17:26

Is this that sovereign citizenship stuff? I don't know. John balances out my inner

01:17:32

Isker. Oh, you're welcome. And I like it. Andrew's a friend. Andrew and I could probably have an interesting conversation about that,

01:17:40

I'm sure. I do see the new right embracing more and more though, a more sort of force and totalitarian outlook on these things.

01:17:52

And I think that's one of the things that I know I got in trouble for, for sort of critiquing the

01:17:58

Puritans, even though I think it was kind of a mild critique. And it was more the Yankees that came after the Puritans in the 1607 project though, is that like, no, those guys are our example.

01:18:09

And I think honestly, what's behind some of that is like, yes, because of that sort of centralizing tendency and that community that marched in lockstep at the, not as decentralized, that that is kind of the way forward for many thinkers in the new right.

01:18:30

Like they wanna go full Lincoln, right? Even if they like waving a

01:18:36

Confederate flag on X because it's edgy or whatever, which is one of the reasons

01:18:41

I do not like seeing that, to be honest, like, I think it's, our American flags, all of them to me are, they're meaningful because of the men who have fought under them.

01:18:53

And, you know, they have historical context, but anyway, they're guys who use those symbols, but even they sometimes wanna go like full

01:19:01

Lincoln on these things because it's just about, we've been kicked to the curb by this monstrous government and we wanna just take it over and use it against itself.

01:19:10

I get it, I get it. But I guess where I would say, would have a lot of caution is that's not the universal arrangement.

01:19:18

That's not, and to think it is, isn't really even a traditionally an American thing. It would be in a state of emergency, which you could argue we're in or have been in.

01:19:29

And it's a measure to restore what was lost as much as we possibly can.

01:19:35

It's, so it's a means to an end. Just like I said at the beginning of this, the constitution itself is also a means to an end.

01:19:41

And what's that end? Well, it's the general welfare of our people. It's giving them as much liberty as possible and self -government so that they could be left alone to make their own decisions.

01:19:51

That's not a libertarian autonomous argument I'm making. I'm saying that there's been these arrangements for centuries that have developed, that have worked.

01:20:00

And we wanna conserve those things because the experience and wisdom of the past is better than the novelties of ideology.

01:20:10

And I'm very suspicious of ideology. So whatever kind of arrangement that would be a force, like a military dictatorship or whatever, it would have to be to restore what's been lost.

01:20:22

That would be the reason for it, to make it a more perfect union.

01:20:28

And it may end up being that we're gonna look to regions and say, this region is not compatible with the United States anymore.

01:20:34

It's just not. Los Angeles is lost, guys. It's my home. I'm sorry.

01:20:40

I mean, it's where I was born at least. I feel like I'm at home there. I still love going back. Even with the homelessness and all of that,

01:20:46

I love going back because it's part of me, but I know enough to recognize when

01:20:54

I'm there, like this isn't effectively part of the country anymore. It's got things, you can still see the past, but it's not the future.

01:21:02

The future is like surrounding LA. You have to go up to like, you know, Canyon Country or Valencia or something.

01:21:09

And then you see like the people who used to live in LA who moved out and have settled in those regions. And it's like, oh,

01:21:14

I'm back to America or something like that, right? Okay, well, man, I've been going a long time.

01:21:20

I could talk about this stuff forever. So the true soldier fights not, in honoring intimates is really giving us some great quotes.

01:21:28

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of them, but because he loves what is behind him. Amen, that is the truth.

01:21:35

All right, I wanted to talk about one last thing. This is Southern Baptist related. It won't take me long.

01:21:41

Jennifer Lyell passed away, 47 years old. This is really sad. And I just want to let you know,

01:21:48

I find it disgusting that David French and Kristen Dumez were blaming people.

01:21:58

And I don't think they mentioned Megan Basham by name, but they're describing people like her and like me that because Jennifer Lyell was this abuse survivor and people questioned her story or didn't buy her story, didn't outright, that somehow her death, we are responsible for her death.

01:22:22

She suffered strokes on Monday and she was found in her home on Thursday.

01:22:28

And it's very sad. I don't know her obviously.

01:22:36

And I didn't, I mean, the only way that I got into the story of this was, I'll just briefly say it,

01:22:43

David Sills, who was a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I've known this for years.

01:22:50

Al Mohler had come out, I think it was in like 2019 or 18 or something and basically said that this was abuse.

01:22:58

And it was important that things are framed that way, that this was abuse, sexual abuse.

01:23:04

And the evidence seemed to indicate though that there was rendezvous over long distances, that this was an affair, basically.

01:23:11

David Sills is married and this is someone who was a family friend and I think worked for Sills at the school.

01:23:17

But anyway, they had these rendezvous and she's at that point, she's older. She's not your typical age of a student.

01:23:25

And it's framed in this way that like, because Sills was a professor, that he had more power over her and therefore it's just abuse and she's not responsible for it.

01:23:38

And anyway, long story short, I've been critical of that, of saying like, what's the evidence here to suggest that this is sexual abuse?

01:23:45

When this sounds like this is, it seems like this is a consensual thing. I mean, she'd go out of her way, right?

01:23:50

So anyway, people are gonna criticize this and say you're talking ill of the dead or something, but it's not,

01:23:57

I guess I sort of have to talk about it because of the attacks coming from it, that she died as a result of people like Megan Basham questioning her story.

01:24:09

So I actually sent Megan a text. Megan did not know Jennifer was sick. I found out and I sent her a text three days ago on the 6th.

01:24:18

And Megan's response to me in my own text message or my own, it was on Signal.

01:24:26

So my own message on Signal was to say that she was sorry to hear it and she's praying for her.

01:24:32

That was her response. I just want people to know that because it's kind of sick to me to blame that on her.

01:24:40

And also, pray for the Lyle family, pray for them.

01:24:45

This has gotta be a difficult time. And I don't know enough about Jennifer Lyle to know where all her convictions were.

01:24:53

I'm assuming though, she made a profession of faith and despite, whether she was, however she handled these allegations and so forth, my hope is that she is in heaven and I wish no ill will towards her family or anything like that.

01:25:11

I think it's incredibly sad at such a young age to go like that with strokes.

01:25:17

So I'm very sorry to hear that. And I did wanna make a defense of people like Megan.

01:25:23

So that's all I wanted to say. And it doesn't say the cause of death other than the strokes.

01:25:29

So that's all we have. All right, well, I think that's all I had for you today.

01:25:35

That's it, yeah. Hopefully that was an interesting kind of, I don't know, outside the box.

01:25:40

It was really just my commentary, my opinion, a lot of it. But I hope that was helpful to think through some of these issues.

01:25:46

Because I think that in the days and the years ahead, we're gonna come into contact with more and more issues that we don't have great solutions for even within our constitutional frame.

01:26:01

Because it assumes that these states are coming together because they have a shared vision and they want a mutual benefit and so forth.

01:26:10

And they do not have a shared vision now. Very far from it. And more so, less so now than maybe we've ever had in some ways.

01:26:18

I mean, you could say that the Northeast had a different economic interest in the South and during that whole federal period and then into leading up into the civil war and all that.

01:26:29

But there was more power vested in the states at that time to do something about it.

01:26:35

We just haven't had that for a long time. And part of it is we don't have men that are very quality people either.

01:26:43

Like we don't have virtuous men who are willing to take the shots. A lot of them ladder climb. That's the majority of people we have in politics, it seems.

01:26:51

So you gotta cultivate virtue. Virtue is where it's at. And that's how republics fall is when you don't have virtue.

01:27:00

So, oh, you know one thing I forgot? Eh, I think I probably, that boat sailed. But I was gonna talk about National Guard history a little bit too.

01:27:08

But maybe I'll save that for another podcast because that's a whole nother thing in this. Should the federal government be able to just activate

01:27:17

State National Guard like that? And from an originalist standpoint,

01:27:22

I actually don't think so. I don't think the militia and the National Guard are necessarily the same thing. But again, that's another precedent we're so downstream from.

01:27:30

We don't have a militia anymore. Not like we did at the beginning. It's not like this sort of deregulated force that's maybe registered on a state role somewhere.

01:27:41

No, now it's like you have a National Guard and it's basically an arm of the national government now.

01:27:48

The states don't really have much power over them. I mean, it's kind of sad to me. But this has happened in incremental steps over the course of years.

01:27:56

So we are where we're at. All right, God bless. I appreciate everyone streaming in and pray for our country.