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Oct. 18, 2019 - Louder with Crowder
01:12:44
#567 IS ARMED REBELLION EVER THE ANSWER?! | Mike Rowe Guests | Louder with Crowder
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Hey, really quickly before we get to the show, just want to let you know how much I appreciate
the support to people who have not yet joined up at lotofcutter.com.
Please do.
It's what allows this content to be free.
There's like 80% more content behind the paywall.
And last chance to sign up for our Halloween Spooktacular at Texas A&M October 31st.
Go to lottowithcutter.com slash tour.
We actually opened up a new large overflow room because tickets have been going so quickly.
Here's a little sample of what you missed for those of you who are not members.
Enjoy the show.
A groundbreaking study now claims that tanning salons could be targeting gay men and putting them at risk of cancer.
They're only one of the services offered at Planet Pence Fitness Center, which when you think about, look, it's still gay?
I think so.
And the theme throughout all of it is we don't really report news.
In fact, someone actually says, this is Mike Brevin talking, he says, quote, we've sold ourselves to the devil.
We no longer report the news.
I want to get married to her but am held up by an unfortunate family issue.
Her parents are supposedly racist.
I am a devout Christian that hopes to raise a godly family.
Do you have any advice on how to approach the situation of having a girlfriend with racist parents?
Did you see any white supremacists in the audience?
No, I did not.
I was looking for him.
I've been looking for a white supremacist.
I've been looking for a Nazi, and I can't find him anywhere.
I've been all over the world saying, have you seen a white supremacist or a Nazi?
I would like to talk to them, please.
Well, I think David Duke still has a Twitter profile.
Then we'll reach out to him.
The contentious relationship between YouTube and Crowder has been heating up.
In this country, all people are equal before the law.
But in a few short years, all peoples around the globe were electrified to learn that what Vox dreamed of, but could not accomplish, came to a thundering realization with YouTube's lightning-like targeting of conservative voices.
This show, Mug Club, and its viewers are linked together in their cause against big technology and their greed will defend to the death your right to free speech fighting for the cause like good comrades to the utmost of our strength.
Mug Club shall go on to the end.
We shall fight on the YouTubes.
We shall fight on the Twitters and the Instagrams.
We shall fight with unwavering confidence and growing strength, even in the face of demonetization.
We shall defend every channel, whatever the costs may be.
We shall fight Against the liberal media.
We shall fight in the quarantined reddits.
We shall fight in the Young Turks comment section.
We shall fight at the TED Talks.
We shall fight with our retweets and our likes.
And we shall fight with all our jerks and with every irritating distasteful sketch.
And we shall never ever surrender!
And if Which I do not, for a moment, believe.
This show and its supporters were subjugated or shadow banned in our mug club.
Beyond all YouTube, armed and guarded by the half-Asian Kraken, we'll carry on the struggle until in God's good time,
the dear, free online world with all its power and might steps forth to the rescue and liberation of the cancelled!
Break the grip of the YouTube Gestapo and join Atlanta with Crowded.com slash Muglub today!
You're a strange animal, that's what I know.
You're a strange animal, I've got to follow.
I'm speechless.
That's called the Chuck Liddell, drunk and high on a morning show.
You guys ever see that?
When Chuck Liddell is like on a Dallas morning show and he's sitting there, and they said, who do you want to fight next?
He said, Tommy Morrison, who was the guy from Rocky 5.
And he blamed it on NyQuil.
I thought she wrote Beloved.
I was wondering what the hell you were doing over there.
I've used NyQuil.
I've never once wanted to fight Tommy Morrison.
We have Mike Rowe on the show, waiting for a while.
So looking forward to that, and we have a web extended there with Mike Rowe.
As I heard it, it's his new book.
We're going to be talking about death threats versus appropriate boundaries as it relates to government seizing your guns.
You know, that leads me to the question of the day.
I know this is a topic that leads to clickbait headlines, and people often find themselves in hot water.
We saw it with Ben Shapiro.
We'll talk about that for a little bit.
Quite a bit, actually.
Most avoid it.
I know that, okay?
But based on the recent controversies, when, if ever, do you think that any sort of an armed resistance to government tyranny is appropriate?
And I need you guys out there to have my back so this isn't taken out of context.
No death threats!
No death threats!
Still not a Nazi!
Canceled.
We're going to keep Bill busy, aren't we?
Leading the news though...
My half-faithful brother Bill Richmond is here.
We were already talking.
Quarter Black Garrett, show them your hood pass.
What's up, dawg?
I hate it.
Don't like it.
Don't like it at all.
G. Morgan Jr., how are you?
I'm doing well, sir.
Wine of the day?
Wine of the day is the Federalist Zinfandel.
Aged in bourbon barrels.
I didn't hear what you said.
The Federalist Zinfandel.
There's no way he said that that quickly.
He said the Federalist Zinfandel.
Did you hear Federalist Zinfandel?
No.
I speak faster than Ben Shapiro.
I heard that you're still on Percocet.
Leading the news.
Donald Trump.
That's foreshadowing, by the way.
We're going to be talking about it.
Donald Trump has joined Twitch.
Yeah, the president made his debut on the gaming platform during a Minnesota rally, signaling the campaign push to appeal to younger voters.
So supporters, they can actually use the app now to donate to the campaign, register to volunteer, and even join the president for Minecraft Mondays.
Hey!
Hey!
Boo!
Pedro!
Not today!
Boo!
Not today!
You're not sending your best.
I'm gonna send you right back.
Lookin' over there.
Let's keep building this wall.
There you go.
Brick by brick.
My wall, frankly, shoots fire.
You see?
And you're gonna pay for it.
Bah!
Bah!
Headstrap!
Hey, guys.
In the chat, let me know what you'd like me to put in my moat.
I'm thinking alligators and spikes.
I don't know if that's allowed.
It's very real.
Just wanted to set the expectations for the show.
Okay, Hopper's already leaving.
We're taking his blanket.
Also in 2020 news, Bernie Sanders has returned to the campaign trail, and now he has endorsements from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar.
AOC will appear with Bernie Sanders on Saturday at a Bernie's Back rally, like the Backstreet's Back.
Bernie's Back!
Again.
Sanders was so thrilled by the endorsements he had a heart attack.
And this lends credence to the recent polling data, we've talked about this, that shows Bernie making inroads with two key demographics, crazy people and terrorists who have sex with their brothers.
That's a Reuters, Ipsos poll with a plus minus margin of error of about 100%.
I thought it was backed up by the Quinnipiac poll.
Is it Quinnipiac or Quinnipiniac?
I don't know.
Does anyone actually say that word aloud?
I only trust Rasmussen and Quinnipiac is frankly that.
That.
In Los Angeles, by the way, a robot policeman.
Police robot?
Police officer?
Yelled at a woman to go away after she tried to report a crime and instead played a song.
Here you go.
It's Star Trek noise.
It's soothing.
Hopper come back here Sorry I had to bring Hopper back he was going to some
We have some producers in here.
You have to sit down, Hopper.
Stay there.
It's disturbing.
So the RoboCop yelled, step out of the way, rolled off while humming, which is really interesting when you think about it.
Oh, hi!
HP RoboCop?
Please, call me Henry.
I want you to think of me as your friend.
Oh, that's really nice.
Do you need to see any ID?
Yeah, yeah.
Don't be silly.
I exist to serve you as part of the department's new community policing initiative.
Oh, it's the community- Suspect alert!
Suspect alert!
Show me your hands!
Hey, everybody hold up!
Shut your filthy mouth!
InspiroboCop, I don't- Let me see the white of your palms!
Okay, okay, okay, sorry.
Give me a revenge boom!
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
InspiroboCop, okay.
Come on, come on, man.
That's not called for.
Hey, listen, I appreciate it.
Let's everyone take a breather, and we'll have someone talk with you, issue an official report later, okay?
I'll be by the bike rack.
Yeah, yeah, so will I. I'm easy to find.
HP, RoboCop, I think you're gonna, yeah, that's, okay, well.
All right, we'll come back soon.
I hope he finds what he's looking for.
By the way, who programmed into a robot policeman the word spook?
I'm fairly certain it was Justin Trudeau.
Which, by the way, brings us to our next story here.
Apparently doctors need to warn women now not to use toothpaste to, quote, tighten their vaginas.
Is that a thing?
There's bias.
Which I don't like.
I'm fairly certain it was Justin Trudeau.
I'm pretty sure that was one of his favorite characters.
Which by the way brings us to our next story here.
Apparently doctors need to warn women now not to use toothpaste to quote tighten their
vaginas as this comes from the New York Post.
It is a thing.
Just like drinking bleach to get rid of autism was a thing that we talked about.
People actually do this.
There are some really stupid people in the world.
We have defeated natural selection and I don't know if it's a good thing.
I think it's just self-imposed.
Natural selection in a new form.
Self-imposed.
Natural selection is learning.
Life finds a way.
The spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say that putting toothpaste down there would not only be uncomfortable, but it could lead to serious damage.
And the organization felt a warning was needed after this became, it became a really big online trend.
Oh, wow.
With influencers, whatever that means, and even the Canadian Prime Minister promoting the practice on social media.
Hi guys, welcome back to another beauty secret tutorial.
Today I want to let you in on a tip.
I like to use all natural toothpaste because it's fluoride free and has activated charcoal, which acts as a really nice detoxifier as well as a natural whitening agent.
So, just apply it to your brush here.
And don't be shy to use a liberal amount and just let the activated charcoal do its thing.
Dale!
Oh, gosh.
Justin.
Justin, Justin.
That's Prime Minister Justin.
Yes, true.
You are not informal.
Prime Minister Justin.
I'd be like, President Becky!
Hey, we have to go to this week's Hollywood Minute.
Ooh.
Still needlessly long.
It's long, but it gets you into it.
It gets you into it.
It's almost as though we give more credence to what's happening in Hollywood than what should actually be affecting our lives.
Oh, that's surprising.
Why do you have your iPad there?
Because I've just got to make sure to, you know, do research and other things.
He's actually typing up his official resignation.
No, no, I have that ready at all times.
Yes, exactly.
That's just a saved draft.
Singer Ed Sheeran, because we haven't talked about him for a week and a half.
Taking a break from touring, and he spent the entire time painting.
You know, for a singer, Ed Sheeran is a great painter, but he's only an average gay.
Now his preferences, they're oil paintings, landscapes, though he says that his real passion actually lies in self-portraits, which if you see, yeah, he's uncanny.
Wow.
Is he really?
No, that was just slander.
I was going to say, I was looking it up just, you know, from the legal perspective.
Matt, can I send you some photos here of his wife?
Wait, is he married?
Well, we can't run it today.
Yeah, I mean, I think we do have some photos of her, but either way... Oh, there we go!
Look, he's giving hope to everyone like Gerald who married up.
Yes.
You know, moon-faced ugly guy.
Wait, hold on a second.
I thought you were putting that up to make the case that he's straight and she's a a field hockey player? Yeah. They're married. Yeah, I know.
She's a field hockey player.
It's covered. Cheryl's favorite. That's using they, their, and zee without a doubt. Rap
artist Ja Rule. Oh my gosh. Remember him?
He said that he still remains haunted by the poor quality of prison toilet paper.
This comes from page six where he said, it was the next step to wiping your ass with a Brillo pad.
Going on to add that it was almost as painful as the time he was raped in the prison shower with a Brillo pad.
Late 90s, early odd hip hop artist Brillo pad rape is no laughing matter.
And it's unfortunately more common than most realize.
As a matter of fact, early-odd rapper Brillo Pad Rape is likely to affect each and every one of us in our lifetime.
Startling statistics show that at least one in four late-90s through early-odd hip-hop artists have, at some point in their life, experienced Brillo Pad Rape.
Even more disturbing, more than 90% of these instances of Brillo Pad Rape go completely unreported.
That would mean that at 2017's Fyre Festival, hip-hop artist Ja Rule was raped with a Brillo Pad upwards of 72 times.
It doesn't have to be this way.
It's time to end the stigma.
Let us be the generation that says enough of late 90s through early odd hip-hop artist Brillo Pad Rape.
Please go to BrilloPadRape.org and give generously to put an end to Brillo Pad Rape today.
Yeah, and that's an actual website.
Really?
Yeah, nice.
I don't like that I heard laughter here in the studio.
First off, you're better than that.
No, I'm not.
You're all better than that.
And Brillo Pad Rape is a pandemic.
Which means it affects people on a global scale.
I thought he was going to be pissed off at the, like, you just, you know, you get the surprise whenever it's not thick enough.
What are you talking about?
It's not a fun thing.
Are you speaking from experience, Gerald?
He's a disgusting human being.
Everything about him is gross.
It's too thin!
Everybody said that experience with too thin paper and rips.
In an effort to relate to, we're going to be talking about government and armed insurrection and all this.
So then, you know, in case this isn't necessarily your speed, there's still quite a bit more of this speed before we change those gears.
So in an effort to relate to the struggles of its young audience, actually, Sesame Street, you know Sesame Street, they debut a new puppet character whose mom is addicted to opioids.
Which, I'm actually a supporter of this, but we've known about the opioid crisis with Muppets for a long time, as we've discussed with our office opioid expert, PJ, who's actually here right now.
Hey, PJ!
Hi, Steven!
Well, PJ, what's got you so down?
Well, it all started with a prescription for codeine after my herniated disc surgery.
You remember that, right?
Yeah.
Next thing you know, I'm performing oral favors for a day trader in Chinatown for half a tab of Percocet.
Wow, that is, uh, that is surprisingly disgusting.
Yeah, I'm in a pretty dark place, Steven.
Last week, I gave a Puerto Rican a huge f*** on his f***ing c*** because he said he had half a gram of fentanyl.
And did he?
I mean, it's a pretty quick slide to rock bottom, Steven.
Just backstage, one of your producers had a bottle of Vites, so I had to give him a Mandy.
Muppet Handy.
Amanda? Muppet handy. Of course it is. Okay. All right. You hang in there PJ. Chin up. Okay? I'll f*** your d*** for an
oxy. That's enough. Oh come on! I don't know why he's even allowed one. Oh my god.
Why does he have the access coat?
I thought his name was not PJ.
I thought it was Gerald C. Yeah, well, soon enough.
Once he cleans up.
Listen, it is important.
People who are addicts, we need to give them something to look forward to.
PJ, you can be Gerald C. once you clean up.
There we go.
Excellent.
There's only Gerald.
It gets better.
Just hold on with your little four fingers.
Hip-hop producer Pharrell?
Pharrell?
Full cover.
The magazine actually looks to explore the ways that traditional notions of masculinity
are being challenged, overturned, and evolved, is what they say.
And that brings us to this week's 7 Plus 1.
So this week, yeah, 7 plus 1, 8.
Practical uses for Pharrell, based on his GQ cover.
Oh yeah.
This is basically a public service.
Practical uses for Pharrell, based on his GQ cover.
Number 7, a wonderful Christmas tree topper.
That's excellent.
Number 6, a shuttlecock for giants.
See, he serves.
You know what, Bill, how about you read us number five?
I like that.
Number five, emergency plane exit.
Jump and tuck.
It works pretty well.
Number four, an ice cream cone for giants.
So it's really useful.
Let's have G. Morgan A-ish.
Let's have you try number three.
A resting place for embalmed Egyptians.
You know, we really could have just said tomb.
Yeah.
Looking back, that probably would have been a little easier to say.
Number two, very worthwhile, valuable, no passing hazard sign.
Pharrell, yeah.
Oh, safety first.
And the number one practical use for Pharrell, based on his recent GQ catalog cover, Georgie sleeping bag, which seems, yeah.
And the plus one, I I forgot, the plus one, the one in the chamber.
Don't forget the one in the chamber.
Plus one practical use for Pharrell based on his GQ cover.
Cancellation of GQ subscriptions.
So there you go.
This has been this week's 7 Plus 1.
You forgot Stefan in the chamber!
All right, who knocked over my pipe?
Ooh.
That was PJ.
I'm pretty sure that was you.
Hey, Corner Black Garrett, read us the winner from this year's trivia contest.
Winner is Catherine Eel?
Are you dyslexic, Porter Black?
Look, you white people make me nervous.
Correctly identified.
Wow.
You mean your mother makes you nervous?
Thanksgiving must be very uncomfortable for you.
Except for half.
Oh, that's awesome.
correctly identify that A&M is a location for this year's Halloween Spooktacular.
Yeah.
Go to loudmouthcounter.com slash tour for details. Okay, so everyone got that out of their system?
Yeah. I want to talk about this idea of people now are labeling anyone who
criticizes the government or accuses policies of being tyrannical, of making death threats.
Yeah.
And I think this is a discussion that we actually should have.
A lot of people don't want to have it, because no one wants to be tarred and feathered as someone who's an extremist.
Right.
We're issuing death threats.
No one here is issuing death threats, I want to be really clear.
Right?
Half-Asian lawyer Bill, you've heard me say this repeatedly.
None.
Good.
Legally covered.
So, let's start it with this.
Beto O'Rourke, in case you think of another Beto.
There isn't one there.
When I say Beto, someone's going, Beto Nathaniel?
No.
I knew a Beto back in junior high, but I don't think he proposed a gun buyback.
It might not be the same one.
So Beto, he repeated his demands for a mandatory gun buyback program at the debates this Tuesday.
Listening to my fellow Americans, to those moms who demand action, to those students who march for our lives, who in fact came up with this extraordinary bold peace plan that calls for mandatory buybacks, let's follow their inspiration and lead.
Let's just follow their inspiration.
No.
Doesn't matter how much of a violation of human rights it is as long as you were inspired.
Doesn't matter.
Just do it.
Hitler looked at some nice watercolors.
Oh my gosh.
Just to be clear, we want to make sure that we are not taking him out of context.
I encourage you to go watch the full debates.
The next day, when asked about it, he doubled down on his comments.
In that case, I think there would be a visit by law enforcement to recover that firearm and to make sure that it is purchased, bought back, so that it cannot be potentially used against somebody else.
Yeah, because you would never want a firearm to potentially be used against someone else.
No.
That almost might negate the purpose of firearms.
It would be crazy to use it for its main purpose of self-defense.
How are you going to take that gun down?
I want to take the knife because it could be used to cut something.
It could be used to separate objects of different density.
And we need to take the knives.
Keep in mind, by the way, while we're talking about this, Beto was arrested for burglary and had a DUI flood the scene.
So the guy proposing this is somebody who was burgling.
He's familiar with it.
You know, you're one of the great cat burglars in the world, Beto.
You think you can keep it down for a bit in there, huh?
Where's Greta to say that he's stealing her future and her time?
I mean, that's the question.
So then they were saying, OK, great.
So B2, you're not going to drink anymore because of the DUI.
You're not going to live in a house.
Or the Drunk Bandits!
Yeah, just whatever you want to do.
The Drunk Wet Bandits.
The Drunk Wet Bandits.
Now, by the way, this is something that's important to note.
Even at the Democratic debates, I think that's why I doubled down the next day.
The Democrats went out of their way.
They wanted to challenge him on this.
And I think this stems from Beto was struggling, I think, to get one or two percent in the polls.
And so he said, you know what?
Democrats, obviously, are pushing her to this.
I'm just going to come out and say, mandatory gun buyback, gun confiscation.
That was his Hail Mary.
And Democrats are going, ooh, we can just pick this guy off more effectively than Tulsi Gabbard picked off Kamala Harris a couple of debates ago.
Which, by the way, Tulsi Gabbard, I actually think the only two reasonable people on that stage, Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard, Tulsi Gabbard has no chance.
She's too hot.
You can't have a president who's that attractive.
People will not feel comfortable around it.
Notably Justin Trudeau.
He's going to be competing, sizing her up, putting his shoulders up.
You're like an episode of Mean Girls.
So the Democrats went after, I want to make sure that we show a clip, they went after Beto O'Rourke saying, well okay Beto, how are you going to enforce that?
It's unenforceable.
Our fellow Americans will follow the law, yes.
Congressman, mass shooters don't follow the law by definition.
The mass shooters in Parkland, in El Paso, I could go on for 10 minutes, they don't follow the law by definition.
But wouldn't it be nice if they did?
You just made it clear that you don't know how this is actually going to take weapons off the streets.
If you can develop the plan further, I think we can have a debate about it.
He can't and you can't debate about it.
Nobody can.
And by the way, last night I was having dinner with some friends and one of the people at the table said it was refreshing to hear him say something other than thoughts and prayers.
Like, did you listen to anything he said?
None of it made any sense.
It was bad policy.
AR-15s aren't responsible for most mass shootings.
And you can't do it!
I don't believe the story.
You weren't having dinner with friends.
You were by yourself.
I was by myself.
My wife's out of town!
You were by yourself crying into a Hungryman.
I was drinking this other bottle of Federalist.
Hungryman XL.
That's all I know how to cook!
It is interesting to think that if thoughts and prayers are a problem and no action, dreaming about a land in which people are just criminals are going to voluntarily hand over their firearms and then only the good citizens will be the ones without guns, that's not fantasy.
Which, by the way, here's the thing, too.
You cease to be a good citizen just for holding on to your rights.
That's the thing.
You are now a criminal because of a God-given right.
And that's going to bring us into this conversation that I really want to talk about and explore.
So, knowing this, last week the left, they had a meltdown claiming that Ben Shapiro had threatened to murder someone.
Because he did say that he would resist the Democratic agenda if it violated basic human rights.
I want you to watch the clip.
Now, full disclosure, I'm friends with Ben Shapiro.
I've known him for a while.
He negotiated my first business contract.
We just met through Andrew Breitbart, and I said, you know, you've got a lot of vowels in your last name, and you seem like you can negotiate this for me.
I didn't know Bill at the time.
I said Shapiro.
Probably a good lawyer, and he did.
He did it very well.
Yes, I am biased, but I want you to watch the clip for yourself and see if he made a death threat in any shape or form.
There's only one reason the government exists.
To protect those rights, not invade those rights.
It is my right to raise my child with the moral precept that I find to be beneficial for my child.
Beto O'Rourke does not get to raise my child.
And if he tries, I will meet him at the door with a gun.
He's basically talking about a home intrusion scenario.
He's talking about protecting, exactly.
He's not talking about threatening.
He's not going out to look for Beto O'Rourke.
He's saying, look, if you come and try to invade my space and try to tell me how to do this, I'm going to protect myself.
Right.
I mean, I think the one thing I would say that is at least intellectually honest about what Beto's saying is that he's admitting that the plan that he has been talking about and that other Democrats have talked about will lead to using guns to seize other guns from people who aren't using their guns wrong.
And so finally admitting it and now even the left is admitting it's not really a plan that will make sense in any kind of efficacy type of way.
Absolutely.
That's a fact.
In fact, the fact is I was at Harvard and you're merely half Asian.
I'd love to see them debate.
Maybe if you go into the courtroom and we meet and you're using your kung fu moves.
We'll do a violin battle.
I'm quite confident.
I played at Carnegie Hall.
But I do lie.
No, it's not.
I'm just razzing him a little bit.
I like to have a laugh.
It does beg the question, when, if ever, is armed resistance required or appropriate?
And how is drawing a line in the sand on that basis, how is that different from a death threat?
Again, half-Asian Bill, my lawyer, not making any death threats.
I am not issuing any call to violence here with this segment, OK?
Right.
He's not.
OK.
OK.
So let's go through point one, if we're examining this conversation.
Because to think that resistance or to think that some kind of armed resistance or armed violent conflict can't happen today is naive.
It's to not understand the basic human condition.
And it happens across the world today, by the way.
Slavery still happens today.
And we'll get back to that.
This idea that we're well past that so we don't need guns anymore Exactly.
It's so factually off-beam that it's the actual—we need firearms, because the only way to protect oneself in the modern world is with firearms, and that's why it's a God-given right.
So let's look at the history as to what in the past, throughout history, humans thought warranted some kind of resistance, right?
And differentiating that—let's differentiate that from senseless violence.
Let's take an example here and say a death threat versus setting a line in the sand and a boundary.
So one, like saying if someone breaks into my house in the middle of the night while I and my family are there, I'm going to protect it with my firearm.
Reasonable.
That's issuing a line, drawing a line in the sand, creating boundaries.
The other, a death threat, would be saying, I'm going to kill everyone at the post office!
One's appropriate.
One's a reprehensible crime.
When we look at history, there are through lines as to when people have resorted to armed resistance.
Legitimately.
Usually it requires the invasive removal of very personal human rights.
I'll give you a few examples here.
Of course, with the American Revolution, you can see freedom of religion was a big one.
People wanted to be able to worship freely.
The government was not representative of its constituents.
Taxation without representation.
That mirrors quite a bit what happened with the French Revolution.
We have a civil war over slavery.
I would argue that's a good thing.
Someone was trying to say, you are going to be enslaved.
I'm going to remove your right to be free.
And there was a call to arms, which is also why we have the Second Amendment in the first place.
And I would just like to say, a lot of people will throw out the thing and say, you can never overcome the U.S.
military forces.
Like, yeah, that's what they were saying about the British whenever we started fighting.
That's what they were saying in Vietnam when we had this long, protracted war.
And in Afghanistan, all these people, you will always outlast and outfight if you're an insurgency.
It'll always happen, right?
You can't wipe everybody out.
So people that are saying you don't need those weapons, you'll never be able to do that, they're wrong.
Not necessarily always.
Historically, yes.
I saw Captain Phillips, the Somali pirate You just need more than one boat.
Still waiting for that guy to appear in romantic comedies.
I don't think it's coming down the pike.
That's his high watermark.
He was nominated for an Oscar.
Where's my failure to launch?
I think when you when you look at the short term the left continues to focus on the idea that well we'll just take away guns and we get over the fact that criminals are still gonna have guns but what what is the point of having the right to defend and if you can't defend yourself in a means that would actually help you let's say I mean that the tales of And not tales, the real life stories of individuals who would otherwise not be able to fight off an intruder, much less two or three or four or five, but have had a simple firearm, even just a .22, to be able to defend themselves and to be able to scare off folks as a deterrent.
You're saying that if you were in that situation, you do not have a right to take any action.
At that point, you might as well just say, lay down, take your clothes off, give them the stuff.
It's your obligation.
In 2019, when people say, well, they couldn't have foreseen the kind of—actually, it's more necessary than ever in 2019, because it's your right to self-preservation, right?
You're not just using a club at this point.
If you don't have a firearm, you're not going to be able to protect yourself.
And as far as the guesswork, I like to take it out of this equation here.
Which rights are worth fighting over?
We have a guide to our stars, if you will, the Constitution.
And it expressly outlines human rights, natural rights, human rights as granted by God.
That's what's important.
You may just think it's some imaginary being in the sky.
That's fine.
But you still benefit from the idea, the premise, that the Founding Fathers used to establish the Bill of Rights, the Constitution.
They said the government cannot grant or remove these rights.
They can only exist to protect them.
So, again, when, if ever, is armed resistance appropriate?
And can someone discuss it in 2019 without being accused of a death threat?
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So let me kind of make this clear, and then you guys can obviously chime in.
Sure.
When would it be appropriate?
Let's start with when it would be inappropriate.
Okay?
When would it be inappropriate to ever defend yourself or mount some kind of resistance?
Okay.
It would be inappropriate for any kind of violent resistance due to a personal affront, due to policy differences, due to ad hominem attacks, or even due to a proposal of a policy that you think could lead to tyranny.
None of those would be appropriate instances to stand your ground.
Okay?
And there's some nuance in there, obviously.
But let me tell you where it gets black and white.
There ceases to be nuance.
The moment there is an enforcement of policy that infringes upon your basic fundamental human rights, resistance is at least an appropriate discussion.
So we've said where it's not appropriate.
Let me give you some clear examples where I think it could be appropriate.
Let's start with Beto O'Rourke.
Going house to house to take people's guns.
Which he has to do that, right?
We're not talking about an assault weapons ban, you know, which basically means like, okay, this is legal, illegal.
Is it, ah, ah, ah, oh.
Joe Biden, we took assault weapons, that was one thing funny with the debate.
He said, we took assault weapons off the street and crime went down.
You dummy, crime was already going down.
Last year was the lowest year, I believe, for violent crime ever.
You were just a blip in the overall downturn.
By the way, I don't think what stopped the crime was this, this, this, ah, ah, ah, oh.
Just people just using less guns because the pistol grip.
Yeah, exactly.
I don't know how to use it now.
Like George Harrison after Helter Skelter.
They got blisters on their fingers!
You think I'm gonna pistol grip this shit?
I don't remember that one.
Okay, so where would it be appropriate?
It's in the V-side, the studio recording for the BBC.
I'm done!
I had a funny line, I'm out!
Yeah, that was George Harrison.
That's it.
That's it for the year, Gerald.
So, you've broken no law when we're talking about house-to-house taking guns.
Let me be clear.
You've broken no law.
It is your personal property.
You have the right to own that gun.
Correct on everything I said?
Yeah.
The government has no authority to infringe upon that right if you are a law-abiding citizen.
They solely exist to protect those rights.
So let me give you another example.
If some person has seized control, to which they have no right, decides that they want to rewrite laws so that they can simply infringe upon your God-given rights, it's illegitimate.
I won't recognize that.
Just in the same way, if someone walks into my house, who's an intruder, he has not been granted permission, and like a vampire, I didn't invite him in.
If I do, it's on me.
It's on me.
I'm going to be pale in the face.
I get it.
It's a rule.
Right?
If he comes in, he does not have the right to take any of my stuff, including my firearm.
Neither does a member of the government.
They do not have the right to do that just because someone said, I am going to create a new law.
That's important.
That's different from committing a crime or foregoing your rights because you're a felon.
Is that totally out of line?
I mean there's obviously a structure in which we say that if you're participating in society, if you give up your rights by committing crimes that are at a certain level, you're giving that up.
I get that there are libertarian friends out there who would say that if you're in the society you never give up the rights, so there shouldn't be such things.
I get that argument, but you know the general premise of where the Constitution came from was that, and where we've interpreted it, is that you would be able to give up those certain rights whether it's freedom, going to jail, having guns taken away, or the vote to write their franchise, etc.
And so then ultimately the question becomes, let's take the reality of saying, okay, let's say it's not the United States, where things are, despite what the left would say, pretty great.
Yeah.
And then you go over to another country where they're fighting for freedom.
Is that rule still supposed to apply there?
Oh, you're saying they have the right to defend themselves because they need to do it right
then, but not in America because we don't need to do it right now, and we will never,
ever, ever have to do it in the future.
And even if God willing we never would have to, but the point of the God-given right is
not only on an individual basis to be able to defend yourself, but to be able to defend
yourself from a government that is supposed to stem from the people.
And when it's not anymore, that's when you have to have the discussion.
And I want to get away from the idea of, you know, like, assault weapons bans, but this is the same reason that freedom of speech, people are shocked when I say, well, it really only exists in the United States because it's enshrined in our Constitution.
Remember that lady at Change My Mind?
She's like, what are you talking about?
We have freedom of speech in Germany!
I said, really?
Yeah, you're lying.
We just don't let hate speech.
And then everyone starts laughing.
She's like, why are you laughing at me?
Stop!
Stop with the laughter!
I'm uncomfortable with laughter.
So is the Japanese.
That's why we make great bedfellows.
It only exists here because it is enshrined in the Constitution.
A law like this, completely destroying the Second Amendment, going house to house, removing people's guns, would that be a legally unprecedented bill?
It would be against the set rules that we have right now that have come from the Supreme Court about what the Second Amendment protects and what it doesn't.
And the line that the Second Amendment comes from on the same premise of the inalienable rights that came from the original Constitution.
So, you know, we've got the Bill of Rights, they further interpret what those rights are and have been set down.
And of course, you know, the states could all get together and take those rights away to a certain extent, except at that point we'd obviously believe it's out of the Constitution and against what the country was founded on.
I was going to say, this isn't something that's a bridge too far for us to really contemplate.
A president getting elected and then using an executive order to try to do something like this to circumvent the Constitution.
I think that's the kind of scenario that we can envision where all of a sudden we've broken the process that we have in place to make sure that the laws of the land are enforced and that we adhere to those laws.
That's the kind of thing that would happen.
And it's never positive.
Let's compare it to the freedom of speech scenario, okay?
But let's kind of go on that flip side of the coin here.
So, I have the right to speak freely.
That's recognized in the Constitution.
What does that mean?
If I'm out speaking against the government, let's say I'm at a right-to-life rally, okay?
Let's just say I'm speaking offensively.
For example, I don't know, using your biologically proper pronouns.
So, just because it offends somebody doesn't mean they have the right to punch me in the face.
Antifa can't come up, throw a concrete milkshake at me.
I have the right to defend myself with appropriate force.
Equal and opposing reaction, right?
That would be no different than if I went out and spoke against the government and they sent armed people to jail me.
Those people are removing my right to speak freely and shrine in the Constitution by force.
I believe that in that instance it is appropriate to defend yourself.
These are extreme examples.
At least they would have been theoretical examples except for the fact that Beto O'Rourke brought it to the world as a very concrete example.
He would send people house to house to take your guns with their own guns.
Made it very clear.
The government has no authority in telling me what I can and cannot say.
Just because a new politician says they can, it doesn't mean that I'm actually breaking the law.
It's a natural law.
It's a human right.
It is not a political policy.
And I'd like to toss the bill on that a little bit.
A lot of people don't understand the idea of natural rights, human rights.
These are birthrights.
Well, the idea that the rights themselves are outside of or above and not given by government.
Because at some point when you say that the government is the one that can create the rights, and those rights don't pre-exist the government, so not only have you unhinged the idea of rights except for someone who's giving it to you, but you have no way to say if a group of people get together and say, Yeah, you actually don't have any rights anymore, so clean my house, right?
I mean, that's the kind of natural thought that led back to a Democratic-led fight for slavery, you know, a century ago.
Wait, when did I lose that right?
Beto did a kickflip.
He's really popular right now, so we let him do it.
One important thing I would definitely say is that, you know, because Beto has already taken this to the very end, that's why we're talking at the end about would you ever need guns, would you ever get to that point.
In between here and there is the court system.
There is the fact that we have the party system, that we have voting.
No death threats!
Context!
Lest you take the clips!
No!
Opposite of that!
Context!
Context!
Go ahead.
So we have all these things like the electoral college versus the popular vote.
And sure, are these systems necessarily 100% efficient?
Of course not.
The natural way of society is that things can't be efficient, but the natural system that we have in America, as opposed to other places, means that if we were to get that far, we would have had to cross so many thresholds that that is the only option.
This is a situation I found with Jordan Peterson.
That's the whole trouble that he got in, the compulsive language that they're dealing with in Canada.
Let's go to another scenario.
The freedom of religion, right?
To worship freely.
Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Scientologist, doesn't matter, right?
It is my right, everyone's right here, to... I know, but you know what?
They technically are a religion.
Careful, careful.
They barely won that!
Let's Xenu hear you.
No, no, I hear Tom Cruise is coming.
Your seat levels will be off the charts.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep,
beep, and then Tom Cruise has sex with you.
What?
How is that allowed?
Part of it.
Lucky.
Again?
It's the Scientology sex for the dead.
That's what it is.
It's like the baptism for the dead, only it's Tom Cruise and he just goes on a date with you.
I don't know what I'm talking about now.
So it's my right to lead my family spiritually as I see fit, period.
If some random guy comes into my church, or your mosque, with a gun, telling you that the Flying Spaghetti Monster has led to more wars than blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, okay, we get it.
Everyone who says it's like, we understand that you took Humanities 101, edgy atheists.
That's not what this is about.
We have the right to defend ourselves if someone walks into a mosque or a church with a gun.
Why?
Because it's a natural human right.
They cannot tell us how we can worship.
Now if the government does that same thing in saying, listen, I'm sorry, and this is what Ben Shapiro was speaking to, you can't take your child to that Christian school.
You have to Not a call to arms!
Not a death threat!
Context, context, context!
Let's the Young Turks try and take this clip and say, call to arms!
Look at this!
guidelines and they attempt to enforce it, which Beto was really clear about, means people
door to door with guns.
Resistance is an appropriate discussion at that point to have.
Not a call to arms, not a death threat, context, context, context, unless the Young Turks try
and take this clip and say, call to arms, look at this, bullsh**.
I want to make sure we're really clear.
The government at that point is no different than a man entering a mosque with a gun to try and stop you from worshipping freely.
Yeah, absolutely.
And when government starts to take some of those rights that we've listed, it never goes to a positive place.
It's never a good thing for people to give up those rights.
And also, the government's only goal is really to get bigger and become more powerful.
Why would you want to allow them to limit your rights while they increase theirs?
That doesn't make any sense at all.
Well, I'll tell you why.
Because you know how you're paying premiums right now for health care?
You're not going to have to do that anymore.
Oh, so my tax dollars won't be paying for it?
Yeah, Bernie was like, PREMIUMS THAT YOU'RE PAYING NOW?!
YOU'RE NOT GONNA PAY THEM ANYMORE!
I was like, well, hold on, we're just... JUST CRIPPLING TAXES!
Yeah, exactly!
Well, I'm excited, you know, millionaire Bernie is gonna be funding that, right?
Yeah, he will be!
Is that book sales?
Rights in my health care fund?
He might have to sell his umpteenth house, or his wife might have to, I don't know, figure out wherever she funneled that money to from Champlain College.
And I remember that college.
I used to see ads for it when I was in Montreal.
I'm getting off topic.
Again, this is not a call for violence.
I want to be really clear.
We have to go to micro here in a second.
This is about establishing boundaries.
More importantly, it's about engaging everyone here, not only in this room, but if you're watching, in a discussion about boundaries so that we can set them before they are crossed in order to avoid any violent conflict.
All right, when you set boundaries and people know that those boundaries exist, for example, if someone says, listen, if I'm a law-abiding citizen and you send someone in my house with a gun, when my family's there to try and take my stuff, whether it's my flat screen, I was going to say plasma.
I don't think plasma's there.
I hope that was a midget.
Each with their own 50-inch plasma screen.
Think about that.
That was only the super wealthy.
Oh, damn unfettered capitalism.
Now I can get it at Walmart, a Westinghouse for $40.
Anyway.
But if someone, for me to say, listen, if someone with a gun comes into my house to take my property, whether it's a TV or a gun, no, I'm not going to allow it.
I will meet you at the door with a gun.
That is a boundary.
That is a line in the sand that if someone knows actually assists them in avoiding some kind of a violent conflict.
Absolutely.
Because if you don't set boundaries, you're often the last to know when you've crossed them or they've been crossed.
Your basic human rights, birth rights, defending them is completely justifiable.
I don't think it's controversial.
You know, if the government just said, we had slavery in this country, terrible.
Context!
Context!
Slavery bad!
Okay?
Context!
on a context!
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Ha ha ha ha.
Whew.
Canceled.
Ha ha ha ha.
Again.
We had slavery, so it's not, and there's slavery across the globe.
Let's say the government, because Beto had an opinion, he did a hard flip to nose grind, said, I don't know if that's a term anymore, I don't know.
Not sure.
He did a, he did a, a goofy hard flip to, why am I doing it like Trump?
Goofy footed.
He did, frankly, a reverse ollie pop shove it to board slide.
On the wall.
And I am not a fan of the board slide.
I prefer grinding on the trucks.
Which is really stupid.
When you think about skateboarding and grinding, you have wheels.
It's like I'm going to slide on the sole object on my board, rough metal that has more friction.
Yes, that does not slide well.
So you're going to do a thing that's more difficult despite having the tools to do it?
Right, exactly!
Like taking away guns from people when they would want to fight armed terrorists?
Segway.
I see what you did there.
Look at that.
He's trying to bring me back.
He's telling me to wrap it up.
I'm back on topic.
He's giving me the red light.
We don't even have a red light in the studio.
I'm tired of your logistic jargon.
I brought one with him.
I brought my own.
So if the government were to say, slavery's back, You can resist that.
I think it's an appropriate response to resist it violently.
In that instance, and I would be with black people if they wanted to put y'all back in chains, right?
Why?
Because the government doesn't have the right to enslave people.
We only know that now because we fought over that.
It was a resistance.
I'm okay with that.
How do we set those boundaries?
That's the question you might be asking.
The good part is we don't have to guess in regards to this because we have the Constitution.
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The Second Amendment guarantees your right to be armed for your protection or the protection of your loved ones.
I was able to stop him before he was able to do any real damage.
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I always felt sorry for kids dressed as M&Ms for Halloween.
No kid wants one.
I used to talk about this in stand-up.
You have one kid who's like, I'm Superman.
I'm going to save the world.
I'm a firefighter.
I'm arresting people from burning buildings.
And then because the kid has a crappy mom, I'm going to melt in your mouth.
I'm full of chocolate.
It's just a layup for bullies, really.
It's chumming for bullies.
It's a lot of padding, though, as an M&M.
All right, our next guest on that intro.
We wanted to get him on the show for a while.
He's a very busy man.
Of course, you know him from Dirty Jobs.
At Microworks is his Twitter.
He has a new book out, The Way I Heard It.
It's basically a collection of stories, and I believe it relates to his podcast, As I Heard It, which I've listened to a couple of times.
Very funny.
And he has another podcast on Facebook.
I want to make sure I get this right.
It's Returning the Favor.
So, so many shows.
And old ladies really want to have sex with him.
Not old ladies.
Ladies, I will tell you this.
My grandmother-in-law, if you mention Mike Rowe, she starts doing this.
And she actually does this.
I don't think she's that hot.
I don't think she's getting a hot flash.
I think she wants to let the world know that if you have him on your show, send him my way.
Mr. Mike Rowe, how are you, sir?
Well, I'm deeply flattered.
I'd love to see some photographs of the woman in question, and I think... She's 96, so... Listen, I'm no ageist, doggone it, and if she's getting the vapors as a result of yours truly, then there's no option but to be deeply humbled.
Well, I'll try and find a picture of her from her youth, because she was quite the dish, but I imagine that picture is just a pterodactyl with sandstone going... This jab sucks!
That's how I picture it.
Your book is The Way I Heard It, correct?
Correct. Okay, and the book is explain it for people who don't who haven't seen it yet read it
The the book began as a collection of stories on my podcast Which is also called the way I heard it which began as an
homage to a guy named Paul Harvey Which some of your listeners might recall as a great broadcaster
who made history and biography interesting by telling short mysteries around subjects with
which he was fascinated in his own life
I stole that idea, or at least borrowed it with some semblance of permission, changed the title, and started writing these stories on airplanes, and then recording them, and then to my wondering eyes, discovering that we had a couple hundred million downloads or something.
A publisher said, hey, it'd be great if you put this in a book.
And I said, okay.
And then my mother said, you know what would be great between these stories, Michael, is if you would share some stories of your own youth in a juxtaposition of sorts.
And I said, Mom, what are you talking about and why can't you mind your own business?
Because now she's a best-selling author, so of course she has answers to everything.
But she was right.
So what came...
It is a weird mix of autobiography and biography.
Truish stories of famous people I've never met juxtaposed with truish stories of my own misspent youth.
Coming together in what can only be described as a happy serendipitous nexus of mystery and memoir.
It can only be described that way because that's kind of flowery.
The language.
It's a little flowery and I guess now that I think about it we could describe it equally accurately as a hot Massive schizophrenic desperation.
Well, I guess, let's just say, uh, good and you should purchase it.
Let's just go with that.
Simple.
Easy.
Let's go, let's go with this.
I'm literally sitting here because I'm doing the book door and I'm looking at my stupid device and seeing that I'm number four on Amazon right now.
And before the interview started, I was number six.
So Steven, we're on a roll.
That's the power of the show that nobody in their right mind has any business doing.
I still don't know how we get senators and presidential candidates.
I'm like, did you see what we did?
We had Pharrell on top of a giant Christmas tree.
Um, okay, so I don't want to blow smoke here, but you've been successful in so many endeavors,
um, Mr. Rowe.
You know, you've obviously done advertising for- Mr. Mike Rowe.
Mr. Mike Rowe.
It's Mr. Mike Rowe.
Yes, you have earned it.
Sensei.
We'll go with Master Rowe.
Master Mike Rowe.
I usually prefer a coach relationship than a master relationship, but I'll allow it.
So you've been successful.
You've done so many different things, right?
And you've been successful in at least what we've seen in the public eye, all of them.
And you've done podcasts.
You've done books.
You did Dirty Jobs.
You've done these sort of documentary-style shows.
You did these commercials with Ford.
What do you attribute your success to?
I have a theory and then I have a personal story about when we first met, but I would like to hear, you know, you toot your own horn first because you're so likable.
I want to tee this up so that you can brag and immediately make yourself unlikable.
Alright, so let me try and approach this in the most humble, braggy way I can.
I was a really good show host for about 15 years, from like 1990 to 2002.
And during that time, I became facile at impersonating other hosts.
And so I was hired a lot to work on projects that were so Poorly conceived and otherwise doomed that no amount of luck or talent could save them.
But I always did a good job and so I had a business model that allowed me to do well in Hollywood by identifying losers and attaching myself to them and then getting hired again, etc, etc.
Thanks for doing the show!
My loser sense is tingling.
Tractor beam, suck me right in.
Sorry, continue.
So Dirty Jobs was a miscalculation.
It was originally three one-hour specials.
They lit them up because I was trying to do a little tribute to my granddad.
And in that format of Dirty Jobs, I was not a host.
I was more of a guest.
And I was in sewers, and I was hanging upside down from bridges, and in coal mines, and all these places, but I never had to pretend to know any more than I did, and I never had to try and sound like an expert.
Consequently, I wound up becoming a pretty good guest, although my appearance on your program might lead some to conclude otherwise, but I'm... No, you're like a vampire.
I have to invite you in first.
That's right.
And then you ruin the show.
Once you do, I will suck the life out of you.
Yes, pretty much.
And so what happened on Dirty Jobs was I realized that I could function as a guest instead of a host.
And once the show blew up, I suddenly became a guy who was really all about managing expectations.
So all I had to do on that show, we never shot a second take, there was no real pre-production, there was certainly no writing and acting and scripting and any of that stuff.
It was truly, my crew were flies on the wall, documenting the day that I had in all 50 states many times over.
And so people began to know me as a dude who simply tried.
I got paid to try.
And that saved my bacon.
Well, I think you're actually sort of echoing exactly what I was going to speak to, your authenticity.
Now, when we go to the web extended, by the way, remind me so I don't forget, I hosted some really crappy shows as well, some pilots.
There was one called Beat My Dad with MTV.
I think the NDA has long since lapsed.
I don't know.
So we'll talk about that off air.
I don't want to bore people with it right now.
But it involves Willie Galt and a girl kicking my ass.
I'll go back to it.
I want to hear that story.
But I do think there's an authenticity about you, that you seem earnestly interested in learning.
When I was watching Dirty Jobs, for example, it was something where I felt as though I was learning along with you.
And when I first met you in person, and I was just talking with Anthony Comea about this the other day, I didn't grow up in the conservative movement.
I was a comedian, and we didn't get Fox News, we didn't get AM radio.
So when I was at Fox, I didn't really know many people.
I hadn't really seen most of these folks, but I did know Anthony Comea.
I knew Jim Norton.
And I met you one time.
You were at the Blaze Studios a long time ago.
And I knew you.
And I don't tend to get starstruck.
And I won't say I was starstruck then.
The one time I got really starstruck was Clint Eastwood.
And I met him, and he turned around, and he said, I'm Clint.
And I was like, what do I say?
I loved you in every which way but loose?
Like, what do you pick from the catalog?
So I just said, and I walked off.
And then my friend was playing an iPhone game, and Clint walked by and goes, so did you?
Rescue the princess.
He's a crazy old man.
That's awesome.
Anyway, so I see Mike Rowe for people out there.
I'll be able to kind of exalt him a little bit here because he is humble.
You're sitting there and everyone's kind of crowding around you.
And I didn't want to crowd you because I could see you were the celebrity.
Everyone wanted to ask you these questions.
But I looked over and you looked at me and you nodded.
You acknowledged me.
So I thought, OK, let me go over, say hi.
I said, hey, I don't want to bother you, Mr. Rowe.
I know you're busy.
My name's Steven.
And you said, You did that documentary on Detroit, and you said, Steven Crowder, yeah!
And then you started speaking with me about what you liked from that piece of content that I'd created, and you took some time there, and that's not very common.
The only other celebrity I can say who did that was when I was young, John Candy.
He took some time to do Home Alone lines with me when I was about six years old.
So it seems like you take a genuine interest in people, but do you also have an abnormally efficient memory?
I'm sorry, what was the question?
I'm kidding.
Just because, to me, it was really special at that time.
I might have been 22 or something, that you remembered something that I had done.
Well, I'm pretty facile with short-term stuff.
It was one of the tools in that spasm of impersonating a host that came in handy.
I can walk into a room of people and typically remember everybody I meet for about an hour.
Then it's gone.
So, long-term, I tend to disappoint.
Short-term, I can create the illusion of genuine interest and curiosity.
I mean, I'm just completely honest, when I'm kind of out there working, that it's all about random access.
It's not about long-term hard drive stuff.
But, your piece on Detroit was really interesting to me because I grew up in Baltimore.
And Detroit and Baltimore are A lot like the people that I featured on Dirty Jobs.
They're unsung, they take it in the neck more often than not, and they're waiting for somebody either to make a persuasive case for their existence, or at least give them a chance to put their best foot forward.
So I thought you did that in a pretty refreshing way, and in some way, shape, or form, the people that I'm interested in, in our industry, in broadcast, find a way to make themselves subordinate to their guests.
I mean, Carson was maybe the best.
Yeah. You know, I mean, these are people who know that the next day
they'll still be sitting there and a new guest will will be there.
Right. And I didn't I it's a form of grace, I think.
And I didn't have it for a long time because I didn't have any certainty of where my next gig
was coming from.
Sure.
But, you know, dirty jobs fix that.
And you struck me as a guy early on who realized, you know, he was occupying a place in the food chain of content and trying to some degree to take the reverse commute, which is also something that's important to me, too.
It's not just about doing something great.
I get the sense that you look around and see where everybody's going and then say, well, okay, but wherever they're going, who cares?
I'd rather not be one of the herd.
I would rather maybe even go the wrong direction, but at least I'll go it alone.
No, I just go the wrong direction generally and I chase my tail.
I wish I could say there was a rhyme or reason.
Well, let me ask you this.
We've already gone for a while.
I want to, of course, let everyone know your book, The Way I Heard It, and the podcast.
And we'll go to off air and kind of talk a little bit more, some inside baseball and broadcasting.
But let me ask you this, because so many people have seen so much of your content out there, Mr. Mike Rowe.
What would you want your lasting, if you had to pick one, your lasting impact, if you wanted to leave people with one concept or message from what you've done, is there something that you really think you'd like to be known for?
Because sometimes it's tough when you've done many different, like Clint Eastwood is a good example.
Director, he's won Grammys I think, was it Honky Tonk Man?
Actor, same with you, what would you want to be remembered for?
Yeah, people confuse me with Clint Eastwood all the time.
I would Well, from an entertainment standpoint, a couple of years ago, I read a letter that my mother wrote to me on Facebook.
She's been writing me letters all her life.
It's a story about how she lost her big blue purse at the Walmart.
I read this thing on my kitchen table, and I posted it on Facebook, and then I went off to the wars, and I came back a few days later, and it had been viewed 128 million times.
And for the first time in my career, I just had to laugh.
That video was me like this, holding my cell phone and reading my mom's letter.
And I reached a third of the country in a production that cost $0.0.
And people loved it.
They laughed.
My mom wound up with a book deal out of it.
I wound up with a book deal.
So many great things happened because one day I took the time to read my mom's letter from my kitchen table.
Totally, this is all way, way after Dirty Jobs.
Way after everything.
I remember we posted about it and I remember we got so much positive feedback from it and it wasn't political.
It was one of the first pieces that we ran on our Facebook page that people just said, this strikes a chord with me.
I remember it well.
And it was full of lessons and it reminded me a lot of stuff, of a lot of things that I had already learned but forgotten.
So on the entertainment side, I'll go with a piece of random, accidental video inspired by my mom.
On the earnest side, a foundation came out of Dirty Jobs called MicroWorks.
We've given away over five million dollars in work ethic scholarships, and now we've got about eight or nine hundred people who have been trained in the business of learning a skill that's actually in demand.
And if there's going to be a legacy from any TV project I've ever done, I can't imagine patting myself on the back any harder.
Than I am for that.
That matters.
Those people are walking around and I'm, you know, I'm proud of them.
And that was, is it microworks.org?
Is that where people can go to learn more about that?
That's it.
You can apply for a work ethics scholarship, or you can give me money.
Either way.
Absolutely.
I'll put them both to good use.
There's a Give Generously button, and it goes wherever you choose.
I understand.
We're a little loosey-goosey with the rule books.
No, that's the same thing that happens with me.
We have the studio, we have all these subscribers, and then I'll tape something on my phone, and it'll blow everything else out of the water.
I go, I should fire all of you!
I wake up with this pressure to keep you employed.
I don't need you.
I just need my roaming charges.
Alright, that is Mike Rowe, of course, at Mike Rowe Works.
The book is The Way I Heard It, available on Amazon.
Always worth reading this stuff.
We're gonna go to a web extended here for people who are not members of Mug Club.
Mr. Rowe, please stick around for just a second.
Here's some music!
We're going to wrap the show up on YouTube.
I'm feeling great, but I would like to respond to that question.
I want to start by saying...
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Today.
That's called the distracted Olympic diver.
Who realized that our bar is outfitted with Peixot's bitters but not Angostura?
Ugh.
I just noticed this!
What cocktail can you make with this?
A Sazerac?
What am I?
The Cajun from the Green Mile?
We have Peychaud's Bitters and we don't have Angostura.
This bar is a sham!
Thank you so much to Mike Rowe, by the way.
Long, web-extended interview for those who haven't joined Mug Club, where we just sort of talk some inside baseball about what it means to be a man, some horror stories, and hosting crappy shows.
It was a lot of fun.
Well, thank you.
I'm glad that you appreciate it.
Hey, you mentioned this to me, too.
I should let you guys know, we're doing the live stream at Texas A&M on Halloween, October 31st, the Halloween Spooktacular.
Of course, we're streaming it.
So it's not just the show at the venue.
It will be streamed live.
And those are always pretty unpredictable.
And I would like to say a lot of fun, but I hate myself for the entire duration.
And it's fun when it's done.
It is fun.
It is a pressure cooker.
We already have people now actually going to A&M and going through the venue and getting it prepared.
So it's going to be a whole song.
It's going to be a slam bang show for you.
Bees knees.
Come on.
Can you imagine DMX or Exhibit just bees knees?
What?
Come on.
Bro.
My D-O-double-G.
What does that mean, Snoop?
I'm really trying to get this started.
I'm really trying here, guys.
Can't you just ping?
Can't you throw me a bone?
Cheap ass fellas.
Suge Knight's gonna, now Suge Knight's gonna hang me from a balcony.
All right.
I wanted to revisit something that we discussed a little bit early in the show.
We were talking about the idea of boundaries, specifically as it relates to a tyrannical government.
By the way, I hope you guys have my back when these clips get taken out of context.
No death threats!
Really clear.
Let me tell you though, I cannot express to you, as I grow older, the importance that I've learned when it comes to boundaries, and how important it is to set them.
With finances, with work, with relationships, establishing them with others, and more importantly with yourself, it's about as important a practice as you can take on.
You've got to do it before the imaginary boundaries get crossed.
Which brings me to something that ties into that, and it's been bothering me for a while.
This expression we hear a lot, and I heard two people kind of arguing about it in a debate, and it was just, it was awful.
The expression, an eye for an eye, right?
Now, I think some people just use that expression wrongfully so to justify acts of barbarism, and they want to disguise those acts as justice.
I think those people are wrong, okay?
But I do understand the principle of reaping what you sow.
But then you have this other expression, and I heard somebody respond with this, and it's a cliche.
You know, I'm not a huge fan of cliches.
The person said, well, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
But that's not true either, because then you run into the risk of not issuing any kind of just punishment, or any punishment at all.
Does anyone think that that's justice?
Well, this guy murdered a whole family.
Hold on a second.
We're not saying I, for an eye, murder his whole family.
Or just saying justice.
It could be the death penalty, which, by the way, I don't necessarily support, nor am I really against.
Whatever the cheapest way is to dispose of this human trash, I'm for.
As long as they don't get an IKEA showroom prison cell like they actually get in Sweden.
Google Alexander Gustafsson, who was a UFC fighter who spent time in a Swedish prison.
You're like, it's nicer than my New York apartment.
As long as it's not that whatever you think is most just.
Here's the thing.
We have a justice system in the country.
Why?
It consists of, word of the day, word of the day, we need to get PJ back in here, boundaries, boundaries is what we're looking for, as firmly rooted in natural, thus human rights.
But this whole expression we hear it all the time, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
I mean, it just doesn't even make sense on its surface.
It's not both eyes being ripped out of the face, for both other eyes being ripped out of the face.
That would be blind, an eye for an eye would, I mean, it would leave the world with some depth perception issues, at worst.
I'm sure you can ask Dan Crenshaw.
That's not a knock, but he would tell you.
He's talked about the depth issues, but it's like you can still function with an eye.
He's doing well.
He's going to be at A&M, I believe, after us.
But two things here.
I digress.
Two things.
It goes back to all of this due diligence and setting boundaries.
The first group of people who use this example, an eye for an eye, they mistakenly use it to justify excessive use of force.
A lot of people don't understand, and AudioWave, we were talking about this, that the context of an eye for an eye, biblically, was about actually putting limitations on the appropriate reactive measures to be taken.
So contextually, again, context over content, an eye for an eye
can be compared to a moral version of equal and opposite reaction.
It's meant to convey that the response should measure an approximation, the action that required,
that necessitated the response in the first place.
So contextually, it's actually about setting boundaries.
The second group of people who say an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, well,
they suffer from a lack of establishing boundaries.
And we see that a lot.
We see it with parents.
We see it with citizens.
We see it with politicians.
You can't just shoot down a proposed solution that has tangibles and concrete because you think it's mean.
It's on you to say what the equal or opposite reaction should be.
Because you know what?
If you don't take an eye for an eye, guess what you get?
You don't get an eye for an eye.
You get one guy taking both eyes.
And then your nose, and then your ears, and your head, and your heart. I don't know how he works
his way down. The point is, this is a sinister guy, this analogy. But in all aspects of life,
if you don't push back a little bit, unless there's a little bit of that tit for tat,
it's not just going to be an eye. It's going to be your life. And that comes back to boundaries.
We all have them. Many of us just don't know that we have them.
And so, unfortunately, our boundaries kind of become fluid.
And that's the thing about setting boundaries.
It's so important.
I cannot express to you enough.
As a society, it's important.
And more importantly, just as individuals in our personal lives, firmly establishing what it is that you will and will not do Firmly setting which lines people can and cannot cross, or you will or will not cross, about what is permissible, we can expand that to treatment of others in the United States.
Setting those boundaries is pivotal.
If you don't set them in stone ahead of time, you won't know what your boundaries are until they've been crossed.
And that's usually when they've been long crossed.
So I want you to do a simple exercise here this week, okay?
I want you to take out a notepad and paper, if you have an iPad and a little stylus, whatever that's called.
What's that called?
Stylus?
I think I got that right.
I'm still on the old Palm Pilot.
I want you to take a notepad and paper.
I want you to write down two or three things that you struggle with, okay?
Think about it.
Pause us if you need to.
Or it could just be things that are important to you.
Areas where you've found yourself maybe making the same mistake repeatedly.
We often do.
I want you to take a second.
Think about it.
Is it relationships?
Maybe with your family?
Maybe with your wife or your husband?
Is it your work or life balance?
Is it your health?
Maybe substance abuse issues?
I don't know what it is, but I want you to write it in the middle of the page.
I want you to write what it is that you want to accomplish.
Your end goal.
I want you to take inventory.
And think of what it is that's hanging you up.
What is repeatedly stopping you from achieving that goal?
Usually, there are a few patterns.
We all fall into them.
Now I want you to draw a square, or a circle, or a triangle around the goal of your, depending on how many boundaries you set, okay?
This is, I leave the choice to you!
The people!
I want you to pick some sides here, four, three, circle, I don't care, hexagon, I don't know, pentagram, whatever.
I want you to write the boundaries that you set on each side.
Could be really simple.
Your goal could be to lose weight, and you're going to write, set on that boundary, right alongside that line, dessert.
You set a boundary that you're not going to have dessert.
Could be a little tougher.
Maybe you're having a tough time in your marriage and you need to set a boundary on the language you're allowed to use.
Write that down there on that boundary.
Once you set it, do not under any circumstances allow that boundary to be violated by yourself or by other people against you.
It may sound trivial, but doing this is so important because everyone, all human beings have a limit.
We all have a line in the sand that can't be crossed, and we need to be honest with ourselves and everyone else that that line, what it may be, regardless of how uncomfortable it is.
Because if you don't have that conversation with yourself, and if you don't set these boundaries, if you don't draw that line in the sand ahead of time, you will be, I guarantee you, the last to know that it's been crossed.
And at that point, it's often too late.
The good news is it's easily preventable.
Take out the guesswork.
Hope that helps.
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