Ep. 561 Exposing Troubling Liberal Hypocrisy on Gun Control
In this episode - Liberals continue to insist that laws regulating abortion will not change behavior while they make the opposite argument about firearm laws. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/03/house-passes-20-week-abortion-ban-with-trump-white-house-support.html http://www.dailywire.com/news/21813/democratic-reps-pushing-gun-control-laws-following-paul-bois This liberal author is grossly misreading Americans’ frustration with the NFL National Anthem protests. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/colin-kaepernick/541845/ Here are some practical solutions for our Obamacare crisis. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-health-reform-that-hasnt-been-tried-1507071808 Who really pays for the corporate tax? http://dailysignal.com/2017/10/03/why-lowering-corporate-rate-is-a-win-for-american-workers/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell%22&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTWpjek5ETTFNRE0zWlRsbCIsInQiOiJETVwvZ2tHK1ZoRzg5aHJ3SW9LOE9Famt5TDFCc3EySDJDTlJORElvZ1c5T2FjZVlKN3RvNDdBRmNXVGZ2TXAwVm5mQmQxV3VXOHlBSjFkXC9wRFVNRys3WXZcL3lJcDNnblR5dlg0b2hpWTRNalZuQjV0RW9tT0xTMDVxQ3lhRDJ3RiJ9 Sponsor Links: www.PrepareWithDan.com www.BrickhouseNutrition.com/Dan
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They've been tweeting to me, Bongino's a nut, Bongino's a blanker, blanker.
The Dan Bongino Show.
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Alright, welcome to The Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Hey, I'm glad to be here, baby.
We were just having some Joe Armacost technical difficulties.
He was like, what?
I said, I don't know.
I can't figure it out.
So I'm adjusting to this new schedule, getting up at like the crack of dawn every day.
It's not too bad.
You know, one thing is your juices get flowing early in the morning.
Today was a squat workout.
And by the way, I haven't even told Joe this.
We are going to record our first Renegade Republican rough cuts.
I haven't even told Joe.
Joe's like, really?
Yeah.
I don't know, Joe.
We'll do it either Friday or Saturday.
But we will have it launched by the weekend.
I promise you.
And we'll talk about all kinds of stuff outside of the political arena.
And I think you'll like it.
So we'll see how it does.
All right.
Let's get right into the material today, because there's really a lot going on right now.
Folks, I got an email yesterday that was a good one, a fair one.
And I make this mistake a lot.
And this is why I love my audience and why I always Always read your emails.
I don't respond to everyone.
I try to.
You usually get a thanks from me or thanks for reaching out or a great email.
But I read everyone.
And one yesterday that came in, I haven't explained this in a long time and I didn't realize I failed the setup.
The guy said to me in the email, you know, you always explain the why.
You know, why Democrats don't support tax cuts, even though tax cuts can bring in more money.
Why?
You do this all the time, but you didn't explain the why about gun control.
Now, I have in the past, but sometimes I forget that not every listener is listening to all 561 episodes of the show.
The why behind gun control, and this is my theory, folks.
I didn't hear this anywhere else.
When I get something from someone else, you know, even when I use like Rush Limbaugh's line, don't doubt me, I attribute it.
This is my theory, but I think it's a sound one.
I'm sure other people may feel this way, but I didn't hear this from anyone else.
And I only say that because I don't have a citation for you, or I don't have an article for you to read.
This is a Dan Bongino one.
The current conservative thinking, if you were to talk, if you were to poll or survey conservatives about why, the why, why do liberals want to take your guns, is because they'll say something like, well that's what, you know, tyrannical regimes need.
They need to, you know, de-arm the population before they can enact state power.
I don't disagree with that that's been the historical record of gun control.
But I have to be candid with you folks.
I don't think that is exclusively the reason.
And I don't even think that is the most prominent reason that the modern radical leftist, not all Democrats here, but the modern radical leftist believes in gun control.
I think liberals want gun control.
The smart ones.
I'm not talking about the lemmings.
Because they understand what a firearm means to people.
It is a tool, but it is a tool that allows you to detach yourself from the state to a degree when it comes to your security needs.
Now, remember, follow me folks, this is important.
The why always matters.
The reason liberals want your money, even if it's a smaller amount, because as they increase your taxes up and up and up and up and up, they're eventually going to crush the economy and get less of your money.
It doesn't matter.
They want to control it regardless of the amount.
They need you to be attached to the state to enact their policy.
It's why they want single payer, even though they know they're going to have to ration your health care.
Because they want you to come to the state.
They need you to be attached to the teat of the state at all times.
They don't believe in school choice, even though the data is conclusive on this.
They will not let you pick your school because they need your education to be attached to them.
That's their political power.
The necessity of your livelihood revolving around their sphere of influence is everything to them.
There is no power, and yes, as Chuck Eckert, the old Howard County executive, said to me once, There's no power in telling people, there is no government power, I should say, in telling people, yes, pick your own school.
Yes, spend your own money where you choose.
Yes, pick your own healthcare.
There's no power in that, Joe!
There is only power in telling people, no, you can't pick your own school, you'll go where we tell you.
That is the very essence of radical liberalism.
Now, let's circle back.
What does a firearm represent?
If you had to do like a Maslow's hierarchy of needs for you psychology students out there, right?
I mean, what of our outside of food and water?
What are your, if you had to triage your needs, I mean, what's like two or three or four in there?
Security.
Security, protection.
Right, if you're not, remember, we live in the United States, one of the safest countries, thankfully, in the history of the world, but this wasn't always like this.
I mean, you know, even Native Americans in the pre-United States, North America, they were always on alert from attacks from other Native American tribes.
Security was not always a guarantee through the course of human existence.
I think everybody gets that.
Security is a necessity.
Liberals need you to rely on the government and the state for your security.
Now, in case you think I'm making any of this up, Listen to how liberals, when you get them into a detailed debate on, quote, gun control, which again, I'll insist there's no such thing.
There's only people control.
You can't control guns.
You can only control people, as evidenced by Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
Listen to what they say when they discuss guns.
They say, well, we have guns.
We have police officers for that.
They should only be in the hands of trained people, the police officers.
You notice they're not talking about private security forces.
They're talking about government entities.
Because, ironically, for a group of people that hates the police, they'll use the police for their political ends.
A gun represents, Joe, and I'm gonna leave it at this, because it was a good email, and forgive me for not readdressing this topic.
A gun represents a degree of self-sufficiency in the security arena, the personal security field and sphere, that liberals can't stand.
It is no different than their need to take your money in taxes.
They need you to rely on your economic well-being on state officials and bureaucrats so they take your money.
They need you to attach yourself to the state through education so they fight against school choice.
They need you to attach yourself for your very health care to a single-payer health care system run by the government.
They also need you to rely on your personal security needs.
They also need that to be a vehicle to attach you to the government and state power.
Does that make sense, Joe?
Absolutely.
I know a lot of you out there.
That was three eyes.
But I know a lot of you out there will argue that, you know, well, after the experience with King George, I'm not disputing any of that.
You are correct.
Just to be clear, don't email me and say, I don't know, I think you're off.
It's a check against tyranny.
I don't doubt any of that is the genesis of the Second Amendment.
You are correct.
Point stipulated.
I'm just telling you, I think the fight now has evolved a bit on the left.
I think it has evolved to a, listen folks, guns are a representation of security self-sufficiency we cannot have in order to enact a control big state agenda.
It's not possible.
Those goals don't correspond.
I hope I summed that up for you.
Terrific question.
Thank you.
My email is daniel.bongino.com.
I read them all, folks.
I promise.
And my apologies if I don't get back to you.
I try to send back a response to everyone, but really, the show has gotten so big thanks to you, it becomes some days just impractical, especially when it's really busy.
Another thing on this.
Let me see.
I had to go to number two.
Oh!
This is really frustrating me lately.
Now I like to tie in current event stories and obviously the tragedy, uh, the attack in Las Vegas is still on everybody's mind.
Um, there's also something else going on right now with abortion, but don't, I'm going to tie this.
There's, there's, there's two parallel arguments going on here and I want to make a case for you here about how liberals are consistently inconsistent.
So I, you know, I take a lot of notes on the show and I headline this, Dano, I'm with you already.
I know where you're going.
We didn't talk about it.
Yeah, because you've heard me say this a thousand times.
I titled this Catching Liberal Inconsistencies on Gun Control Advocacy, just to remind myself where we are.
Now, there's a bill in Congress now that just passed the House of Representatives, an infant patient pain protection act.
It puts significant restrictions on abortion after 20 weeks.
It passed the house 237 to 189.
Now folks, I am pro-life from conception to natural death.
Those of you who listen to the show know that.
I have significantly changed my mind on a lot of these positions over the years because I think my faith has taught me where I was wrong.
And I am pro-life, avidly pro-life, proudly pro-life.
Again, conception and natural death, just to be clear.
But I do believe that we should make steps to save as many lives as we can, and if we have to get something passed that says restrictions after 20 weeks, then I'll take it!
I'll take it now.
It's not solving the problem.
I would like to see abortion, abortion, the stain of abortion wiped from it.
I mean, it is unquestionably for me the death of a human life, the termination of a human life, right?
But if we can get 20 weeks or later, I'll take that now.
Now, the bill is probably going to die in the Senate because the Democrats are radical on abortion.
As I tweeted out today, they are not pro-choice, they are pro-abortion.
Why am I bringing this up in relation to the gun control debate?
And I know Joe already knows where I'm going with this.
Let me read to you a quote from a Fox News piece.
And all of these articles, by the way, will be up at the show notes at Bongino.com.
Thank you to everyone who subscribes to my email list.
I will email you these articles every day if you join the email list.
So thanks to the emails growing by leaps and bounds now.
Tens of thousands of people.
So thanks a lot.
In response to this preventing a 20-week-plus infant from feeling the pain of death and termination in the womb in this bill, this is an Oregon Democratic lawmaker, Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Italian, or Bonamici.
She says, when abortion is banned, it does not go away.
It drives women to unsafe back alleys and to dangerous self-induced abortions.
Okay, folks, what does this have to do with gun laws?
Let's just use her own logic.
And I'm not, this is not an isolated example.
I only used her today as one exemplar of a large body of Democrat responses to abortion laws that are the same thing.
And the gist of what she said was, laws don't matter.
Women will get abortions anyway.
Let me just read that last part again.
It drives women to unsafe back alleys and to dangerous self-induced abortion.
She's saying this representative from Oregon, this Democrat, Oregon, sorry, again, to people from Oregon.
She is saying it doesn't matter.
Abortion laws restricting abortion won't matter because people will go get abortions anyway.
Should I interject?
Where do you think I'm going with this?
Well gun laws don't matter because bad guys that want to get guns are going to get them anyway.
Yes!
Now this is the point I try to make on this all the time.
Pointing out liberal inconsistencies is very easy because liberals are consistently inconsistent.
Yeah.
So Republicans are pushing this 20-week act to restrict abortions after 20 weeks.
By the way, listen, if you were going to get an abortion, I don't understand.
You cannot make the decision before 20 weeks?
And then people say, well, what if you don't know you're pregnant until after 20 weeks?
Well, after 20 weeks, you have a nearly fully formed human being.
It's small.
The stage of life is small.
The stage of development is small.
But I'm sorry, we have to do something to protect human life.
The reason you're using here is the exact opposite line of reason and so-called logic that you're using with guns, as Joe just pointed out.
You're saying these laws don't matter, that people will go get abortions anyway, even if you pass these abortion laws, but then you're saying on gun control, by the way, despite zero evidence that any gun law would have stopped what happened in Las Vegas.
Zero.
You could say, oh, well, maybe if we had made bump stocks unlawful and illegal, maybe if we had done that, that he wouldn't have killed as many people.
You don't know that he could have made his own bump stock, folks.
These are not hard to make.
You have no idea.
You're using the exact opposite reason on gun laws and it's because you are not being principled on this.
You're saying in one case laws don't matter on abortion people will do what they want but then on gun laws despite zero evidence you're saying oh now the laws matter and it will change things even though you have absolutely no evidence that that's true.
I heard last night a guy on Tucker's show was watching, they had a guy from Mediaite on, and he's arguing in one point that we have to do something.
And I wrote this here, I took a note on this.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, doing something, air quotes, has a cost.
This is not zero-sum.
When you do something, like you ban transactions between family members.
Like I gave a gun to my, I transferred a gun to what was it, my dad or my brother one time.
I didn't want it anymore.
Do you understand that banning those transactions creates a problem for me?
Then I gotta hold on to the gun, I don't want the gun, maybe you can't secure it in your house, you don't feel like going to a licensed dealer, so what do you do?
Now you're stuck with a gun you don't want, you potentially can't secure.
These are not ramification-less decisions.
The Democrats talk about doing something as if we live in a consequence-free vacuum.
They say, well, we need to do something because something's better than nothing.
No, something is not better than nothing sometimes.
Because something costs someone else something.
You're costing me my big R rights and my freedom.
Why should I be restricted on what I can purchase on a weapon because of the acts of a homicidal maniac?
What do I have to do with this guy?
Absolutely nothing!
Nothing!
So now I can't purchase what?
You don't want me to be able to purchase a... And then the guy said, well, we need to increase the guy on Tucker last time I'm talking about.
I was arguing with him.
He kept presenting meaningless things that would have made no difference in this attack.
Well, maybe we should increase the waiting time to buy a gun to 20 days.
And Tucker said, dude, the guy bought the guns in June.
In case you lost track of time, it's October.
What do you mean?
So now I have to wait, Joe, 20 days to buy a gun because of a homicidal maniac.
And by the way, you can't even show me by any kind of mathematical calculation of the date-time continuum that that 20-day proposal to wait to buy a gun would have made any difference because the guy bought the gun in June, the Las Vegas attacker.
I don't get it!
Do something is not a solution when your something impacts other people but doesn't impact the actual criminals.
It's even worse when the logic you use is reversed when you're trying to advocate for the termination of human life in the womb.
You want to, quote, do something and create new laws on firearms, firearms which can save people's lives, by the way, because you're supposedly, Joe, you're trying to help people and save lives, despite no evidence that your new laws will do anything, while claiming on the opposite issue, on abortion, the termination of human life, that new laws don't matter because women will get abortions anyway.
So next time your liberal friends say to you and start advocating to you for new laws and how these ask them, are they going to change behavior?
So then just respond back.
So, okay, great.
Well, that's why we're trying to get some abortion laws passed too, to save some lives.
But I assume you're going to argue that won't change behavior, right?
That if we legislate new abortion laws after 20 weeks, that women will just get back out of the abortion.
So which is it?
Do laws change behavior or do laws not change behavior?
I suspect you'll never get a reasonable answer from the left.
All right, I want to go on to why their PR strategy here is all wrong too, and I covered this before, but this is another brilliant point.
Now, this was not mine.
I'm not taking credit for this.
This is from National Review.
I think it was Jonah Goldberg.
But this is important, why their PR strategy, the Democrats that is on guns, is all wrong.
And I'm telling you, I promise you, it's destined to fail.
It's destined to fail.
It will never win over time, ever.
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Okay, the PR strategy here is all messed up.
Now, Jonah, I'm pretty sure it was Jonah Goldberg.
He wrote a piece a long time ago.
It was over a year ago, I think now.
The PR strategy for getting people to believe that a product or service is somehow malicious and is going to cause them harm and to get them to stop using said product or service, in this case we're talking about guns, but the PR strategy has been tried in the past on other products and has worked.
Now, he uses a great analogy, and forgive me, I don't have the link, folks.
I'll try to find it for the show notes today, but it's rather old, and I've Googled this before, and it's tough to track down.
But Goldberg says the mistake the Democrats are making here Is unlike with guns, let's use the analogy of cigarettes.
Now forgive me if you heard this on like episode 300 or something like that because I talked about this before, but this is a point that's very valuable and very worth repeating.
The Democrats are usually marketing geniuses.
I got an email from a guy once which was brilliant.
He said the problem on the Republican side is a lot of people that fund the movement and fund the ad campaigns for candidates and fund the consultants for Republican candidates, Joe, are commodity type people.
We have a lot of people into natural resources, people who own oil companies.
You know, we have people who own financial type firms and commodities and service trading and stuff.
And a lot of that stuff is based strictly on not really marketing, but just value added.
A lot of it, they have high operating leverage.
It's really just a straight business model.
It doesn't rely, it's not like a pet rock.
Where a pet rock frankly adds no value to your life at all, it's a marketing scheme to make you feel like having a pet rock makes you feel more special, right?
Right.
He said how in the same email he goes, the difference with Democrats and why they're typically pretty brilliant at marketing their ideas, you know, fair share, income inequality, we got to help the poor even though they screw the poor, you know.
He said the benefit they have is their money people, the people funding Democrat consultants and Democrat aid campaigns are tech industry folks.
And tech industry folks, Joe, the product is 60-70% marketing.
I mean, really, candidly speaking, what's the big difference between an Apple and a Samsung?
What, the iTunes platform?
Is it that important to you?
You can get it on your computer, you can get it anywhere.
The difference is the marketing.
You know, people want to be hip, they get the earbuds, Apple bought Beats.
I mean, what were Beats?
Joe and I are in this industry, right, Joe?
Beats are fine headphones.
They're not bad, but I prefer Sennheisers.
I think Joe has Sonys.
I mean, really, you can save yourself probably a hundred bucks and buy yourself a pair of Sonys.
And I got to be honest with you, you won't notice a sound quality difference at all.
Joe and I do this for a living.
You might, sometimes it might sound better.
Yeah, exactly.
It might.
And the reality is like, nobody thinks Sennheisers are cool.
Nobody, although I think they're the best.
I'm using them right now.
But you see how that's all marketing?
Now, my point in this is that the Democrats, that's their advantage.
Those are the people, tech industry people and tech titans, that support the Democrats and gives them a built-in kind of home field advantage on marketing, whereas Republicans don't have to rely, they don't have a lot of experience in it.
Again, we have a lot of energy folks.
I mean, these are commoditized products.
You know, their stock is based on value, it's not really based on fancy merch.
Buy mobile oil!
It's nicer and smells better!
I mean, it's hard to... It's like, what's cheaper?
That's it, okay?
My point in this is that they've blown this advantage big time on the gun issue.
And the reason they've blown the advantage, and I'm adding here, and now Goldberg's premise is that when Democrats and Republicans took on the tobacco industry and tried to convince Americans that smoking was bad for their lungs, which it is, He said the genius was that the Democrats and the Republicans both knew people on the other side that had smoked.
Joe, you and I grew up in the 70s and 80s.
A lot of people smoked.
A lot.
My dad smoked.
My mother smoked.
My father never did.
My mother smoked like a chimney all the time.
Marlboro Lights.
I remember I used to have to buy them for at Tommy's Deli in Glendale.
Can you go get cigarettes?
I'd be like, ah, man, and pick up a half a pound of turkey.
And I'd always get an onion bagel when I walked out or onion roll.
I'd love those with butter.
Those are great.
But everybody knew someone who smoked.
So the PR strategy to slow down smoking, and just keep in mind the analogy I'm making is Democrats are trying to slow down the acquisition of guns.
But the PR strategy for smoking was lay out a sound scientific case, but lay it out in such a way that's not accusatory of the other side.
In other words, the strategy for stopping smoking, Joe, was a good one.
PR campaigns, the commercials, you remember seeing them, Joe, a lot of them, even the drug commercials.
This is your brain on drugs, whatever.
The smoking took a similar tack.
They would show you what a balloon would smoke and this is what your lungs look like on smoke.
But did you notice, Joe, and this is the key point, the ads didn't start with, you evil bastards who smoke, we hate you.
That's what happens with the gun debate!
And the reason I'm bringing this up is the other day I mentioned on a radio show how liberals and conservatives are different.
I may have mentioned it on the podcast too.
How liberals think conservatives are bad people attached to ideas and we think liberals, most liberals and democrats, are people attached to bad ideas.
There's a difference!
When liberals start with the premise that conservatives are these people, they're gun nuts, and they want everybody dead, and they want to shoot up crowds of people, and they're defending murder.
When you start with that premise, do you understand, Joe, how it's absolutely impossible to engage in a cigarette-like campaign?
Sure.
Because the ad has to be, you smoke, you are a mmm, you're a blank hole.
There's no other way to do it.
So Goldberg, and I'm not suggesting we give the liberals advice.
Oh, and the reason I'm bringing this up too is because the problem they're having also with the PR campaign against guns, Joe, is there was a generally understood, well-respected scientific consensus on smoking that it was bad for you.
Right.
I don't know a credible scientist out there who said, no, smoking's wonderful.
It's great.
As a matter of fact, it's healthy.
Nobody was doing that.
Four out of five doctors, yeah.
Now, the point with gun control is not only are you already angry at the other side and your commercials or your advocacy or your comments on the Senate floor are, you evil conservatives, they want to defend guns and they want people dead.
People have already tuned you out.
You have nothing.
You understand, Democrats, you are talking, you're preaching to the choir.
Gun owners have already tuned you out.
Do you get it?
No, I'm really serious because I know I have liberal listeners based on some of the hate mail I get.
Nobody is listening to you!
Nobody!
I change the channel, or if I'm listening, I'm listening only to get angry.
I hear nothing you said.
But then secondly, even worse, you follow it up with not a sound scientific consensus like on cigarettes, but you just make stuff up!
You just make stuff up like there's a gun show loophole like I discussed yesterday.
There's no such thing.
That is a total myth, a fabrication.
So now not only are you already inherently angry at conservatives and you've started the conversation with how evil we are and how we're all killers, but secondly you follow it up by lying to us when we already know the truth.
Guns, more guns, more crime.
No evidence of that at all.
There are 147, actually I take that back, 170 million new guns in the country since 1991.
There's an article in the Daily Signal I put in the show notes on Monday.
170 million new guns since 1991, crime rate has dropped 50%.
Violent crime rate.
I'm just giving you the facts!
I know they don't comport with your ideological worldview.
Well, certain areas where there's a lot of guns, crime has gone up.
And those areas have gun control laws.
Doesn't that bother you?
Like you're cherry picking data that works against you.
It doesn't make sense.
So you're saying basically areas that have gun control laws, heavy Chicago, they have more guns.
Areas that have relatively loose restrictions on guns have fewer guns and less crime, but you're suggesting that those gun laws are the solution.
Do you get how you're... Joe, does that make sense how they're screwing up their own case?
They don't care.
And one more point on this, because this is critical.
There is a big disconnect in this country right now.
I think this is obvious.
But there's almost nothing we agree on anymore.
Now, I say that because when liberals engage in this PR campaign, do ridiculous speeches and other things to try to get Americans to not purchase guns or to support gun control, again, they use faulty data and they begin by calling us idiots and we support guns over people and all that stuff.
They're tools for us, ladies and gentlemen, they're tools.
Guns are.
No one's in love with guns.
These are tools for us.
They're self-defense tools.
That's it.
Liberals don't understand that.
The problem in the country, Joe, is we don't agree on anything anymore.
And the political divide has never been as strong as it is now.
Never.
Now it's about, again, conservatives are evil people where we think liberals just have really bad ideas.
We don't agree on anything.
Tell me, you think I'm wrong?
You're a listener to this show?
Tell me where I'm wrong.
What do we agree on?
Taxes?
Nope.
Conservatives have all the data, liberals still think we should hike taxes.
Despite zero evidence at all, is that going to do anything for the economy?
What do we agree on?
School choice?
Nope.
Healthcare?
Nope.
We think you should control it, they think the state should.
Folks, we don't even agree on who our enemies are.
You have radical Islamic terrorists multiple times each year mowing people down with weapons, you have radical Islamic terrorists bombing people, running them down with cars, and liberals will still make the case that white extremists are more dangerous by manipulating the statistics and engaging in identity politics.
We don't even agree on who the enemies are!
That's why this PR strategy's gonna fail.
Liberals make no effort whatsoever to agree or find a common ground on anything.
None!
Instead of saying, yes, radical Islamic terror is an enormous threat, but, you know, we also have to keep an eye on other folks too, you know, it's not just, okay, reasonable, they won't say that!
They won't because they don't cede one bit of ground.
That's why they will, folks, they will lose big time on this gun thing.
I promise you they will never win.
Okay, this one's a doozy.
Someone sent me this last night.
Forgive me, I don't remember your name, but they sent me an article by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I'm telling you, I'm really loving his pieces.
This guy is a liberal and his material is just great for breaking down in the show.
So I want to talk about something he said in the piece.
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Okay.
Another... Here's where we're going with this.
So I left it off with how we don't agree on anything.
I think they understand liberal ideas, but liberals don't understand conservative people at all.
They just think we're evil and they never listen to us.
Meanwhile, we'll actually hear liberals out, and then we'll just prove them wrong.
So there's a difference.
Proving my point, by the way, that liberals will always lose on the gun issue because they don't know gun owners, because they don't associate with them.
And if I didn't say that before, forgive me.
Jonah Goldberg's premise was that liberals knew and conservatives knew smokers, but liberals don't know gun owners now.
Because they're evil people, so they don't associate with them, so they don't know how to talk to them.
So that was the point I was trying to make before, and this piece that Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in The Atlantic is just evidence that liberals, again, have no understanding whatsoever about what's going on in the culture today.
His piece, the premise is buried, excuse me, it's right there in the title for you all to see.
It says, civil rights protests have never been popular.
Here's the gist of it.
There have been some attacks lately, even from the left, and I should say criticisms, and I think they're valid criticisms, the left will call them attacks, on the Kaepernick protests in the NFL.
The protests that started against police and the National Anthem and how America is an unjust country.
You all know what I'm talking about, the take a knee approach.
Yeah.
There have been some, Joe Scarborough, who says he's, well, he actually just divorced himself from the Republican Party, but he used to be a Republican.
He's come out and said, hey, this may not be the best idea.
I think we're helping Trump.
And there's another author out there I'll put the piece in the show notes, check it out.
I usually don't like to give them clicks, but it's valuable for understanding the mind of the leftist.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is criticizing these people.
He's like, ah, you guys aren't on board, civil rights protests, even though back to the The bus boycotts and others, these have never been popular, they've never held popular opinion, and therefore, even though these NFL protests are unpopular, and they may in fact help Trump, you know, this is, we're on, basically we're on the right side of history.
And here's the problem I have with this.
The civil rights protests were protesting actual civil rights, folks.
I mean, the protests for the Montgomery bus boycott against segregated seating, the protests against Jim Crow and segregated seating in restaurants and colored water fountains were legitimate, actual protests against state-sanctioned discrimination against black Americans.
That's not open for dispute.
I mean, that's a stain on our history that any person of even slight morals and ethics would understand.
These were absolutely 100% morally upstanding ethical fights.
The fact that some people who had racist tendencies, whether they got them from their parents or just been taught that way, still held out and deemed those Martin Luther King era civil rights era protest show unpopular, didn't make them wrong.
And the generation that followed up, the children of those people, Joe, As public opinion started to change, started to become more aware, whether it was through the media or interacting with other people, that it is obviously a moral stain and an abomination to segregate our population by melanin content.
People figured that out because it was true!
That's just wrong!
Like, everybody gets it!
That's wrong!
That they were unpopular based on a prior, you know, decades ago when people had been, in some cases, raised differently with different ideas and had never seen the right side of it outside of their own bubble.
That's a completely different era.
Where Coates is completely wrong on this.
He's saying, well, since those civil rights Protests were unpopular based on polling and survey data.
We should basically ignore the fact that these NFL protests are unpopular because these are just as just.
Folks, that is totally, completely nonsense.
The problem with the NFL protests today is, number one, the tactic of the protest.
Martin Luther King always respected the country.
That was never in doubt.
Even Coates acknowledges that in his piece.
The tactic of disrespecting the flag, a universal sign of disrespect, is to not acknowledge the flag during the national anthem and to kneel in front of it.
The tactic of doing that has turned people off and secondly, so again, the tactics differed under the civil rights protests of Martin Luther King and now.
They loved America, Martin Luther King and the protesters and wanted a way to fix it.
These people are disrespecting America doing this now, these NFL take any protesters.
And secondly, again, in the civil rights era and under those protests, they were fighting legitimate grievances.
People now are having a tough time finding what to fight.
What are you talking about?
Oh, it's about police brutality.
Well, how?
What do you mean police brutality?
Well, police are hunting black people, but they're not.
That's not true.
Like, that's actually not happening.
Joe, you see where I'm going with this?
Like, there were actual colored water fountains.
Sure, yeah.
There was a good chance you could get beaten up if you happened to be black and drank from a water fountain that wasn't colored.
That was real.
Like, that happened.
People are having a tough time now trying to process what you're telling them.
Police are hunting black people.
People are like, wait, really?
Where?
They are?
We're protesting racial injustice.
How?
What kind?
What are you talking about?
Do you realize there's a lawsuit going on right now, I kid you not, about racial preferences in college?
That if you happen to be black, you can score lower on the SAT than Asians by a significant margin and still get in.
That's the lawsuit.
It's not the other way around.
So while no one's saying, oh, racism doesn't exist, They're saying, wait, let me get this straight.
You're claiming the system is biased against people who are black while you're making millions of dollars in the NFL.
And my experience has been quite the opposite.
I even wrote about in my book with the secret service, how they have these informal tacit quotas for people who are minorities.
Everybody knows it.
Folks, if you're going to protest to enact change, you have to change something that actually exists.
Jim Crow was real.
What you're saying now, people don't see it.
They're not saying it doesn't exist, but they're saying that what you're saying, Joe, that it's systematic, meaning widespread and embedded in the system.
People don't see it.
I guess this is what Coates doesn't get.
I mean, you know what?
A lot of people will come back and they'll say, well, it's still very difficult for a black male to get a cab in New York City.
I don't doubt that's true.
I'm not black.
I don't know.
But folks, you know, that's a problem with the cab companies.
That's not a problem of government systematic discrimination against black America.
Do you see where I'm going with this, Joe?
And that's the problem with it, where Coach just doesn't get it.
His whole premise here that, well, the civil rights, you know, marches were unpopular and therefore we should ignore the unpopularity of this, is totally, completely off.
They were two different eras, two different causes.
One was just, one now is just confusing.
One just, one just confusing.
Nobody understands systematic oppression.
You make 10, 100 times more than I do?
How are you oppressed systematically?
I don't get it.
Okay.
Matt, you know what?
I never thought of it in that regard.
I mean, now that you've picked it apart like that.
I mean, Coates, these civil rights marches, Joe, were fighting actual system-based, government-sanctioned discrimination.
There is no question the term systematic oppression applied to the Jim Crow era.
Certainly.
If you were part of this system, meaning you lived in a Jim Crow area, Jim Crow state, you were subject to oppression.
Your behavior was oppressed by definition.
You couldn't sit at the counter with everyone else.
You had to sit in a colored section.
You were oppressed.
People don't see that now.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, it's why these are unpopular.
You're comparing apples to oranges.
So I'll put the piece in there.
It's actually worth reading.
I get we'll give them the clicks.
I don't like when I do this, especially to identity politics people who seek to divide us.
But it's well worth reading, especially after listening to this, because you will get a very good You know, view inside the mind of how the far left thinks.
And again, to tie it back to my gun thing, how they'll never win on these arguments because they just don't understand us because they don't talk to us.
They keep telling us they want us to look.
You need to listen.
We need to have a conversation.
They don't listen to us.
They don't listen to us on guns.
They don't listen to us as to why disrespecting the anthem because of systematic oppression, why that doesn't mean anything to us.
They don't ask us that.
That's why they lose.
That's why they've been wiped out all over the country.
That's why liberals don't exist on the coast anymore.
Alright, in any large numbers at least.
Hey, there's another good piece in the journal today and I'll wrap with this.
Scott Atlas wrote it.
I'll put it in the show notes.
Excellent, excellent piece about some solutions for Obamacare.
Some of the things I've discussed already.
But he talks about some really simple fixes to get rid of the Obamacare disaster and the healthcare pricing debacle we have in the country right now.
And he mentions how, in the piece, solution number one, which is something we've addressed before on the show, is the third-party payer model, whether it's through insurance or the government, is failing.
When you insure everything and price nothing, Joe, prices explode.
Insurance is meant to insure people against catastrophe, against an accident.
It's not meant to cover everyday costs.
Those are entitlement programs.
Those are not insurance.
Now, just to use an analogy in the car insurance market, you insure your car against collision and theft, right?
Right.
Pretty straightforward.
Why don't you insure your car against gasoline costs?
Because it's a maintenance cost of your car!
No one insures that!
Your insurance costs would be ridiculous!
So what we do is we typically pay for normal everyday average maintenance costs for our cars and against accidents or major catastrophic loss, the car is stolen, it's damaged, we don't have the money, we provide insurance so we don't have to keep money in the bank to fix the car in the event of an accident.
The analogy is no different for your health.
You should have insurance against cancer, HIV, hepatitis, diabetes, major diseases because it costs a lot of money to manage those, but not paying to go to the doctor for a flu shot and not paying to go for a checkup is absurd!
It's driving the cost curve through the roof because expecting a third party, whether it's insurance or the government, to pay that makes you not price sensitive.
Because you're not paying.
You've already paid through your insurance or your taxes.
So you want to suck up as much services as you can?
You already gave your money.
Might as well get the product.
Now, he makes a good point, Atlas, in the piece.
He says the critics will come back and say, oh, you want to price stuff.
Stupid.
What are you going to do?
Price shop in the back of an ambulance?
That's what he says in the piece.
Folks, that is a ridiculous... So, just to be clear, liberals will tell you in response when you say, we need some semblance of a free market in healthcare to control prices.
Liberals will respond saying, well, pricing doesn't work in the event of an emergency.
I mean, what are you going to do?
In the back of an ambulance, you're going to price shop for the best doctor?
Folks, he puts up a statistic here.
I love facts and numbers because they always prove liberals wrong in my experience.
I wasn't aware of this.
Joe, take a stab at this percentage-wise, right?
What percentage of healthcare expenditures Do you think emergency care, like emergency rooms?
What percentage of our overall health expenditures do you think are emergency care?
30%.
I'm so glad I did not set this up with Joe.
Not even close!
Really?
Because I think that's, Joe, that's what I would have thought too.
I'll be honest, I would have thought a little higher.
Okay.
It's only 6%!
6!
As in 0-6, not 6-0.
6% of our healthcare expenditures are in fact emergency expenditures.
Now, I'm going to add on.
This is the Dan Bongino addition to this, the appendix.
I'm going to make an analogy for you because I love analogies and stories.
White liberals are wrong on this.
Liberals will tell you, oh yeah because emergency care, you know, health care is different, we're never going to price when it's life or death.
Well apparently when it's life or death it's only a small sliver of the market, 6%.
So you're just making that up.
94% of health care is not emergency expenditures.
So you could in fact price it like you could price anything else.
Now, for those liberals that'll say that'll never work, it works now in legal services, Think about what I'm telling you, Joe.
How much, and I don't, forgive me, I don't have the exact number.
If anyone out there has it, email me.
It wasn't in the piece and I had to get on the air so I didn't have time to do all the background on this one.
But I am sure the percentage of legal services that are emergency-based are equally as small.
So when I say emergency-based, you're arrested, you need a lawyer, you have an arraignment.
It's not a contract you have, you know, that's not an emergency.
It's a land dispute with your neighbor.
These are not emergencies.
These are legal situations, wills, you know, trusts, that kind of stuff that they can wait, you can shop around.
Now, Again, liberals' premise is that emergency care wipes out the pricing model.
It doesn't wipe it out in legal services.
I assure you, the amount of emergency necessary legal services is probably just about as small.
But what does the government do?
The government says you have the right to counsel.
The government will provide for you, will provide an attorney for you at a criminal case.
They will.
And you can work out payment, or if you can't pay, they will do it free of charge.
Folks, do you see how that has worked fine?
Nobody's boycotting at the capital, at the cost of legal fees, but they're boycotting healthcare.
And forgive me if this is a little confusing, but I promise I'll tie it up for you.
But the government does the exact same thing with healthcare.
Just like the government will provide for you in an emergency situation, you're arrested and you can't afford a lawyer, we'll provide a lawyer.
The government already provides for you care in an emergency room that you have to be accepted.
You have to be accepted in an emergency room.
That is, it is against the law for an emergency room in a hospital anywhere in the United States to turn you away for care.
Did you know that?
Yeah.
It's illegal.
We've discussed it on the show before.
It's illegal.
They do the same exact thing.
So suggesting that the, what I'm getting at, let me sum this up.
What I'm getting at is suggesting that emergencies, In the healthcare arena, throws the pricing model out the window and makes pricing ineffective is a complete fabrication because one, emergencies are already taken care of just like they are in the legal field where the government provides you a lawyer in the event of emergency, yet notice where the government's not as heavily involved in the legal field as it is in medicine.
The federal government pays about 40% of healthcare bills in the United States.
The legal field's not complaining about prices, but healthcare is.
That is because of the government.
Now, forgive me if that was a bit confusing, but I was just trying to make the point that liberals will suggest to you pricing won't work because healthcare is an emergency at times.
It's only 6%, just like it is, probably roughly the same percentage in the legal field.
Yet the government doesn't pay for every lawyer, yet you want the government to pay for every healthcare thing, every healthcare procedure you get, an emergency or not.
That's what's driving up the prices, folks.
Government involvement and third-party payers.
All right, folks, I really appreciate you tuning in today.
Please subscribe to my email list at Pongino.com.
And thank you for all the reviews at iTunes, Joe.
We're over 600 reviews now on iTunes.
Oh!
Yeah, up from 250 just a few months ago.
So thank you very much, folks.
I'll see you all tomorrow.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
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