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May 27, 2022 - The Muckrake Political Podcast

01:14:09

UNLOCKED: Will We Ever Solve The Gun Problem?

This is the full Patreon episode available to everyone. To access our Friday shows, plus a host of extra content including live shows, click here: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss what happened in Uvalde, Texas when an 18 year old killed 19 children and 2 children as well as the reaction from GOP lawmakers in the state of Texas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	Hey everybody, just a quick note.
	The people who enjoy these previews outside of the Patreon, we felt, Nick and I, that this was an important episode.
	We're going to go ahead and release this thing in full.
	Meanwhile, we will return next week back to these weekender editions, being Patreon episodes, Go ahead and go to patreon.com slash my great podcast in order to gain access to those, but also support the podcast.
	We really, really rely on that.
	And, uh, we just thank you for being listeners.
	Uh, again, here we are.
	Let's talk about it.
	Hey everybody.
	Uh, welcome to the Weekender edition of the Buckrake podcast.
	I'm just going to tell you upfront, this is not going to be a lighter version of the podcast as the Weekender sometimes is.
	Just a heads up, if you get any kids in the car or run around, I have a wild feeling there's going to be a little bit of anger and profanity laced throughout this one.
	We are of course broadcasting here, Nick Hausman and myself.
	We are in the wake of an absolutely tragic, unbelievably disturbing, infuriating shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
	A gunman, as you all are aware at this point, went into Robb Elementary School, shot and killed 19 students.
	9 and 10 year olds, by the way.
	9 and 10 year olds.
	Just wrap your head around that for a second.
	Two teachers, wounds, 17.
	Listen, I know this is going to shock everybody who used an AR-15 in order to do it.
	Nick, before we get into the specifics and we get into the anger of this whole thing, I'm just nightmarish.
	All the way around.
	Yeah.
	First of all, you left out the part where he shot his grandmother in the face and drove off.
	Somehow crashed his truck outside the school and then took a shot at a couple people who were running out to see if he was okay.
	It didn't hit them.
	And then proceeded to do what he did.
	You know, he bought these two guns.
	He bought them legally, you know, when he turned 18.
	It was, you know, it just boggles my mind that you could buy, you know, these two kind of guns close together.
	You can buy hundreds of rounds of ammunition and there's no connection made.
	There's no thought of, like, why would anybody need this and these things all together?
	But, you know, that's what happened.
	Yeah, completely healthy society we're living in.
	A kid can go out and buy a six-pack, but he can go out and buy weapons of war that, you know, ruins the lives of God knows how many people at this point.
	You know it's interesting you say that because now I'm realizing there was some law they're trying to pass or maybe it's already passed where if you're in the military or you're a veteran and you're under 21 you can buy these weapons and I suppose that makes sense because that same idea is if you can serve your country and fight for your country at 18 then why can't you buy a gun legally but again why we have to allow guns in the first place why we are interpreting the Constitution like it's 1787
	None of this makes sense, but it does make sense.
	It almost makes perfect sense.
	I want to say it's a symptom, right?
	Like Trump is a symptom of whatever.
	This is a symptom, but it's also the absolute worst issue we have to deal with, too, at the same time.
	Yeah, you know, we just covered this awful shooting in Buffalo, New York, where people were going in to get their groceries to never walk out again.
	Families absolutely destroyed.
	Communities destroyed.
	Media moved on from that real fast.
	I was actually making a comment yesterday to a friend of mine that it's one of the more disturbing parts about this is that these two massive shootings were so close in proximity to each other that the accelerated American attention had already forgotten the Buffalo shooting in enough time for this to now be surprising.
	The next day, I don't know if you caught a glimpse of this, but another Texan kid was caught with an AK-47 and a hit list ready to go out and do this.
	Maybe by the time this airs, you know, we'll go on to an even worse shooting.
	Who even knows?
	You know, there's really no other way to say it.
	This is fucking absurd.
	It is fucking insanity to live in a culture like this.
	Shout out to all of our listeners who have kids who have to, you know, send their kids into school, you know, having to like say goodbye to them, not knowing if they're going to be in a similar circumstance.
	Listen, everybody listening to this knows this is absolute madness and insanity.
	And we're going to get into not only what this is, but where it's going.
	And it's as bad as it gets.
	It really, truly is.
	It's as bad as it gets.
	But their anger keeps swirling around.
	It's hard to figure out where to place it because there's so many options here.
	There's a lot of blame to go around.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But like, you know what the reaction is going to be from the gun protection people.
	And I'm being nice when I say that because obviously it's just the GOP.
	You know they're going to start screaming and yelling, we cannot politicize this.
	They already have.
	I mean that's going on within seconds of the thing being filmed.
	And it's almost like to try and take away any ability to try and have the outrage.
	You can't have the outrage.
	You can't politicize it.
	You can't talk about laws that we could pass.
	We already have laws.
	The laws are already there.
	It wouldn't stop these bad people from getting the guns.
	Anyway, I don't want to get off on that tangent yet because I feel like we still haven't talked a little bit more about what was going on in the timeline.
	Here's the thing about the timeline, which is now people want to question the police, which please go ahead and question them to no end.
	It's chaotic.
	Things are all up in the air.
	They don't know what's happening.
	They're trying to piece it all together.
	It might take a little while, so whatever they might have reported the first 24 hours is completely contradicted now.
	I'm willing to sort of give them the benefit of the doubt and sort of let them sort it out till we finally get the actual timeline, but even still, there's a lot of holes and a lot of contradictions that don't make sense.
	Yeah, I've been so pissed off over the past couple days that I haven't allowed myself to really You know, put my ear to the railroad tracks to see what the conspiracy theorist and far right are saying.
	Undoubtedly, the confusion, and this is what always happens, confusions that happen around mass shootings, create a vacuum that is filled by conspiracy theorists in all of this.
	And this is something that's developing as we're recording this episode.
	We're recording this on Thursday, May 26th.
	The timeline is strange.
	Really, really strange.
	We've been hearing a lot of contradictory reports.
	The first thing we heard was that the shooter engaged in a shootout with the police.
	It does not seem like that is the case.
	Went in, killed the majority of the people.
	Sounds like immediately that's what we're being told.
	Now all of a sudden there's all kinds of videos and reports that are coming out that the police had pinned him down in the classroom.
	Which is problematic in its own right.
	The fact that it's being spoken about in that way.
	We're seeing videos of parents, frightened parents, being kept from running inside.
	A lot of reports that it took forever for the police to go in.
	Rumors that they are going in and saving their own children.
	We're not sure what has happened.
	We do not want to contribute to conspiracy theories or misinformation.
	But I will tell you something that is not misinformation.
	Anybody who wants to sit around and talk about this bullshit about a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, and that's the only thing that can stop a quote-unquote bad guy with a gun.
	Horseshit.
	Straight-up horseshit.
	That's not the way this works.
	That's a frame of mind that is... I'm sorry, it's chauvinistic, American, hyper-masculine, Western ideology.
	It is the dumbest thing.
	We see this over and over again, this fantasy that all of these white American men have that if they were just there with the gun, you know, they'd be able to stop it.
	Or if one white man with a gun was there to stop it is racist, chauvinistic, misogynistic bullshit.
	And in all of this, unfortunately, it's just reaffirming that all over.
	Right.
	I mean, you know, what seems to be, you know, the timeline now in the story was that he did get through, open a back door that was unlocked.
	There was no police.
	There's no security.
	That was originally reported.
	There was no security from the school.
	He was driving around.
	He wasn't on the campus.
	But it does sound like two cops did engage him in the school and they were both wounded.
	But even still, you know, to see this video of the parents who ran there and, you know, the parents couldn't have gotten there.
	It would have been 20 minutes, probably, after the whole thing started.
	You know, to see these cops, like, holding them back.
	Listen, again, we need more information.
	Obviously, you need a perimeter.
	You need cops to, like, keep the people from safety and not rushing into a situation that would make it worse.
	I kind of get that as well, but it does sound like there might have been time where he was in this classroom.
	and not being engaged and then that gave him the time to do what he did.
	I mean, it is awful.
	I'm not even sure why I want to subject myself to the details.
	I mean, do we have to get into those?
	I don't even know if it's worth it.
	He was wearing, by the way, what looked like body armor, but when they found him, it was like he didn't even have a plate inside the thing that would have stopped any bullets from hitting him.
	So, you know, it did feel like in the beginning, the reporting men, it seemed like, well, we couldn't do anything because he was so heavily armored.
	You know, our bullets just bounced off them or something like that.
	So hard to believe trained officers couldn't take him down quicker than they did.
	Yeah, it is.
	And as we're getting these details, I know this is shocking to everybody.
	The Republican Party, Nick, they have a lot of answers, just a lot of answers on what happened here, what went wrong here.
	Let me check my notes.
	Did they talk about guns?
	No.
	No, they did not, except for purchasing more guns.
	This happened, of course, in Texas, which the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, is one of the worst, most dangerous, most disgusting governors in the United States of America.
	You know, before we get into his response to all this, I just want to remind everybody that Abbott, because again, he's a rootin' tootin' Texan and, you know, part of this whole hyper-masculine gun culture and gun-worshipped, fetishized cult, has for years called on Republicans and Texans to go buy more guns.
	And it has even said at times, we're falling behind in the ranks of guns.
	We need to go out and buy more and more guns.
	Well, guess what?
	The Texans are doing that.
	And let's go ahead, let's take a quick second and see who Greg Abbott and what Greg Abbott is blaming this shooting on.
	Think about during the time over the course of that 60 years.
	We have not had episodes like this.
	And why is it that for the majority of those 60 years, We did not have school shootings.
	And why is it that we do now?
	The reality is I don't know the answer to that question.
	However, what I do know in talking to the leaders here, as well as leaders in other locations around the state, and that is one thing that has substantially changed is the status of mental health in our communities.
	That's right, everybody, the mental health crisis, which I got to tell you, Republicans care a lot about mental health crisis.
	And by the way, it's funny, you know, to sit around and say this is a part of mental health crises when Greg Abbott is just the type of Republican governor to slash hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of mental health services.
	From the budget of Texas.
	So really, even though if you want to believe it's bullshit, still kind of on you, my man.
	Still kind of on you.
	We need to go back in time.
	It's not that far when this became the talking point.
	And like, because obviously they're sitting around going, well, damn, how are we supposed to figure out how to defend all these gun, you know, murderers and stuff?
	Well, let's do someone came up with mental health.
	That's a good one.
	And it probably wasn't.
	Do you remember?
	Do you have a sense of it?
	It had to be like in the 90s at the earliest.
	I don't think it was Well, it used to be, you remember this, it used to be the lone nut.
	Right?
	I mean, it was, and it works the exact same way.
	I gotta tell you, by the way, I don't know how you feel about it.
	This catechism that the United States uses to wrap its head around this thing, we talked about this in Buffalo.
	Isn't it funny?
	We just talked about this.
	The thing happens.
	Everybody says it's unimaginable.
	Nobody can believe it happened here.
	It's so quiet here.
	People don't even lock their doors.
	They know each other.
	And then all of a sudden the details start coming out.
	And it's like, oh, he was disturbed.
	He did this.
	He had done that.
	And then all of a sudden, you know, CNN, NBC, they all show up at your town.
	They host the nightly news from there one night.
	The president comes out, sheds a little bit of a tear.
	Everything's fine.
	Wash and rinse and repeat.
	It used to be the lone nut.
	Now it's, you can't even just say it's a lone nut because it happens so often at this point.
	And you have to at some point or another say that there's something wrong with the fabric of the country.
	In this case, the Republicans are blaming a sick society.
	They want to point towards religion.
	They want to move it in that direction, a lack of morality or whatever.
	But yeah, that feels like it probably started to take off I would say in the 2010s is when they started even mentioning mental health.
	But they, of course, I know this is going to surprise you, Nick.
	They don't mean it.
	Well, no.
	These people suck from the teat of Ronald Reagan, who was the initiator of just defunding mental health all the way across the board.
	And, you know, you can draw that line from here.
	Now, listen, mental health is a serious issue and is related to these things.
	There's no question.
	There's a role in it.
	Absolutely.
	So it's like, great.
	You know, if you want to talk about mental health, we should do that.
	But that should be the third thing we talk about before, you know, or after we talk about gun control.
	And by the way, you're not supposed to say gun control, Jared.
	Supposed to be gun one of my wife tell me gun.
	Oh Man, you don't remember the safety.
	Yeah gun safety.
	I think that's it gun safety cuz gun control me Oh, that's gonna trigger them all they're not gonna be able to have a discussion about it anymore That's where we're at real fast Nick mental health wise quick question in right-wing reactionary America what happens when someone has a mental health crisis and the cops show up do they I Do they take them aside?
	Do they calm them down?
	Do they get them the services that they need?
	It depends on what they look like.
	Right?
	It does.
	But if they look a certain way, then they're gonna get shot.
	They're going to kill them.
	Yeah.
	Which, by the way, is part of the mental health thing.
	Which is the idea, if you really want to start going down to the basis and the root of this ideology, it's like, these are dogs that need put down.
	I mean, that's really what this is.
	And if you really want to go ahead and go down the right-wing reactionary path, you want to start talking about mental health crisis.
	They're not talking about getting people therapy.
	They're not talking about getting people prescriptions.
	They're not talking about getting people in places where they can be taken care of.
	They're talking about surveillance.
	They're talking about harassment.
	They're talking about persecution.
	That's where this whole thing is going.
	Yeah, I mean, I suppose they're also, you know, imagining like 12 monkeys style facilities for people that they herd them into and then, you know, get no treatment at all.
	I suppose, which is what kind of what was existing before when Reagan got rid of them.
	Well, I'll tell you what, we turned in a lot of those You know, it's pretty kind to call them mental health facilities.
	Right.
	But you take those mental health facilities and you turn them into prisons.
	Because prisons are profitable.
	And on top of that, when you put them in prison, Nick, you get a bunch of free labor from them.
	And you don't have to treat them very well.
	Yeah, you don't.
	And there's not going to be anybody there who's worried about their feelings or whatever.
	So you just throw them in prison, you get a bunch of free labor, or you put them down like dogs.
	That's really what Abbott is saying.
	Right.
	And meanwhile, what they won't say, and here's the thing that's really interesting is that the NRA used to be the real boogeyman here because they funded all these things.
	The NRA is nothing.
	They don't represent anything anymore.
	They're on their last legs.
	They're in the midst of a huge lawsuit that's going to probably end up putting them completely out of business.
	Oh, and I'm glad you brought that up.
	Everyone's talking about the NRA.
	They laid the foundation for this.
	They did incredible damage.
	It's not like people in politics are necessarily afraid of the NRA.
	Republicans are afraid the NRA will come out and say whatever.
	The NRA, you want to talk about things that are on their last legs, like this is a shambling mess of a place.
	At this point, it's not that.
	They're afraid of gun lobbies.
	They're afraid of political retribution if they are seen as being weak on gun control or whatever.
	Well, no, they're afraid of actually individual voters.
	This is a key issue here for a lot of these.
	Okay, that's the other thing.
	The control of the government based on these laws is, you know, a very small group of senators can really control the entire legislative process against, you know, or keep guns legal the way they are.
	Both sides of the aisle, by the way.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay, we'll throw Manchin in there.
	I mean, there's not a lot of them, but there's a few, right?
	Oh, there's a few in there.
	I'll say, there are a few.
	But, you know, if you look at the numbers, Brownstein had an interesting article today where he laid out the numbers of the amount of Republicans who support Gun safety, right?
	Gun safety, gun control.
	It's minuscule compared to the amount of gun owners who are Democrats who support gun control, right?
	And then people who don't have guns obviously want gun, everybody wants gun control there, and hardly anybody who has them on the Republican side wants it.
	Like 80% of Americans support All common sense, gun reform, gun safety, gun control, whatever you want to call it.
	It is wildly popular.
	Wildly popular.
	By the way, more popular than abortion.
	Yes, absolutely it is.
	Isn't it weird also, by the way, that the things that we were told for decades were like the most divisive issues, the most hot-button divisive issues, are not divisive at all.
	They've just been trumpeted up like they are.
	And this is, again, and some of it's 90% pick.
	Some of it's like these universal background checks.
	That's a 90% support.
	You want to get into the 80s, that's most of it.
	I mean, this is not a divisive topic.
	I said this yesterday.
	The problem isn't a lack of support.
	The problem is a lack of courage.
	The problem is a lack of compassion.
	It's not about the support not being there.
	It's the fact that these people, these representatives, are cowards.
	And they are there for one purpose and one purpose only, and that's to represent entrenched wealth and power.
	That's it.
	They have no care whatsoever about what happens to the majority of our lives.
	Can I share with you some of these numbers, by the way?
	Because I just remembered I had them.
	I have them screenshotted.
	So this is from the Atlantic.
	A RAND Corporation study, our friends at RAND Corporation.
	Friends of the pod.
	Yes, friends of the pod.
	They found that 20 states with the highest rates of gun ownership had elected almost two-thirds of the Senate Republican lawmakers.
	And that compromised two thirds of the states that President Donald Trump cared in 2020.
	So in a mirror image, the 20 states, the lowest rates of gun ownership had elected almost two thirds of states Democratic lawmakers.
	So the bottom, the fact that they have equal representation when they represent so few people is insane.
	And like the bottom line is somehow this God given right to be able to have a gun.
	Right.
	And it's God-given, right?
	We're not going to ignore that.
	Most people will use that term.
	That's what the NRA did.
	So the NRA is going to die and they're going to fall apart.
	But you're right.
	They laid this foundation.
	They planted the seeds over... With the GOP.
	With the GOP.
	Yeah, and that's, by the way, probably in the 80s.
	It wasn't, like, way before that, but this is, like, you know, relatively in the modern era.
	This is now a sentient monster that has created its own brain, and we have these people who are convinced of that, and it's just as dangerous as the big lie about the 2020 election.
	It's like, these are the things, the seeds that are planted that were not supposed to happen in our democratic society.
	That's the exact same as the big lie.
	It's part of the same narrative because they live in a reality in which, you know, liberals, Democrats, whatever, are stealing elections in order to undermine the country.
	And what is their main goal?
	It's to take the guns and to go ahead and put you and your family into camps.
	That's it.
	I mean, it is literally part of the exact same narrative.
	And you have to create that alternate reality because to simply say, I'm sorry, but Abbott can't just get in front of a microphone and say, Hey, you know, I know this is pretty disturbing stuff, but we're not gonna do anything about it.
	Like, that's not an alternative, right?
	You have to go up and you have to give a lie.
	And by the way, while we're on the subject, props, applause, whatever, to Beto O'Rourke.
	Like, that's what you need to do.
	And listen, I'll be honest.
	These people, like Abbott and Patrick who we're going to talk about and Ted Cruz who we're going to talk about, all of these assholes who have blood on their hands, they shouldn't be able to go out in public without someone calling them out for who they are.
	They really shouldn't.
	And by the way, I can already hear somebody saying, This was a political stunt by Beto O'Rourke.
	Absolutely it was!
	And I love it.
	That is exactly what needs to happen.
	Real fast, let's hear Beto O'Rourke interrupting Abbott and all these assholes.
	This time I will pass the mic to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
	Governor Abbott, I have to say something.
	Excuse me.
	You're doing nothing.
	You're offering us nothing.
	You said this was not predictable.
	This is totally predictable when you choose not to do anything.
	Sir, you are out of mind.
	This is on you until you choose to do something different.
	This will continue to happen.
	Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state, or they will continue to be killed, just like they were killed yesterday.
	That's what we need more of.
	We don't need thoughts.
	We don't need prayers, which, by the way, is what the DNC, the DCCC, all of these strategists and all of these paid people that advise the Democrats, they say, hey, don't get out in front of your skis on this.
	Don't politicize it.
	Send your thoughts and your prayers.
	It's the safe thing to do.
	Fuck.
	We need people who are going out interrupting this shit and calling people in power to task.
	Yeah well Chris Murphy did that well and so Beto is interesting because yeah it is a political stunt and I was trying to figure out exactly what was happening was it a press conference for the the shooting and which is what it was or was it like him just doing a you know they're running for governor kind of thing because Beto is running against him for governor right we don't we never really had you know these two candidates.
	I hope he buries him in November.
	Yeah so but you're right like it felt it felt authentic to me enough where you know even though he knew obviously way before he went there that he was going to get all the sorts of coverage and he had a little gaggle outside of that um but yeah that's that's what we we need I mean You know, I guess outrage is part of it.
	Joe Biden comes out and in very strong terms says we need to pass this thing.
	Why doesn't he do like an executive order?
	I mean, I suppose it'll get shut down quickly, but at least you might have something going to begin with.
	I don't know what's available for that.
	I don't know what needs to happen.
	But I have to tell you, Nick, I'm tired of the same shit.
	I'm tired of the same press conferences.
	I'm tired of the same speeches.
	Like, we're in a literal crisis.
	And I don't just mean with mass shootings.
	I mean all of this shit.
	With this authoritarian movement, with the mass shootings, with all the destruction that's taking place.
	We need people who seem like they care.
	Those old speeches, and just letting the Republicans lie like they are, and just continue to carry water for the gun lobbies, and basically usher us into all of this.
	Like, if you just go out and give a regular speech, what's that tell people at home, Nick?
	Things are regular.
	I mean, yeah, this seems bad, but I promise we've got everything under control.
	I gotta tell you, the Democratic Party does not have this under control.
	And it needs somebody.
	And I have some policy problems with Beto O'Rourke.
	That's whatever.
	He has been very open about this.
	He, in fact, he suffered going into the presidential primary of 2020 because he said, we're going to take your guns.
	We're going to take your AR-15s, your AK-47s.
	He said that in so many words and it hurt him.
	And that type of political courage is so severely lacking at the moment.
	Yeah, and we know that when Clinton did the assault rifles ban in 1994 for a decade, it limited mass shootings.
	There's a lot of different reports, people want to try and massage the different numbers, but it seems clear to me, having read a dozen articles about this, that we had less mass shootings when you made AR-15s and that illegal.
	And it makes no sense that you couldn't at least ban the, listen, I'm the guy that wants to ban every single gun all across the globe, if we could.
	Let's get that universal law across the globe.
	But at the very least, we need to have, you know, the background checks.
	You know, I don't know, did you see what Steve Kerr, because you're talking about people that need to take a stand, the Golden State Warriors coach, who's, you know, he's in the middle of a basketball, you know, NBA Conference Finals.
	He's busy.
	But he took the time to do something that was really powerful and you maybe hope that that's going to shift some hearts and minds of people who probably are Warriors fans who also carry guns.
	And now we have children murdered at school.
	When are we going to do something?
	I'm tired.
	I'm so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the Devastated families that are out there.
	I'm so tired of the, excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm tired of the moments of silence.
	Enough!
	90% of us, we are being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote despite what we the American people want.
	They won't vote on it because they want to hold on to their own power.
	It's pathetic!
	I've had enough.
	Yeah, I mean, he has been outspoken for years, and has put a lot of his capital on the line in all of this.
	I gotta tell you, I think ... I was sitting with this, and I don't know where you're at on it.
	I was sitting with this yesterday, and I wrote an article about it on my sub stack.
	I really, truly think the only way this is going to get any better is a grassroots movement.
	Because we can't have politicians who are being elected particularly because they're wealthy and because they're representing the wealth class.
	Obviously we're going to have to get money out of politics, but at some point, I don't know man, if we're going to pull back from this abyss, it's going to have to be a popular movement of Americans and speeches by people like Kerr, actions by people like O'Rourke, Popular outrage that basically says, hey, you know what?
	If you're just going to continue sacrificing our children, basically to the ancient, you know, evil god Moloch, like if you are literally going to sacrifice our children, guess what?
	We're not going to work.
	We're not paying our taxes.
	Things are done.
	And things are done for a while.
	And do you know where this would have happened?
	It would have happened in a country like France.
	Because in France, if you raise taxes like an nth of a degree, everything shuts down.
	Shit stops.
	America is so individualistic.
	But I have to tell you, this is the type of disturbing thing that feels like Hopefully it could finally touch a nerve if you get enough CURS, you get enough AURORKS, whatever.
	It feels like it might reach some sort of a tipping point, and I'm not holding my breath waiting on it, but that feels possible.
	Well, the movie version is you're way out in the head, and that's the single issue you're running on, and maybe it's a whole party, like the anti-gun party, or whatever that is.
	Um, but the reality is you probably need sleeper people, sleeper agents, who are going to not mention it, not say anything.
	You get them in and then all of a sudden they're getting legislation going and they're trying to whip votes.
	But again, to see the process go through and have the fucking Senate with the way it's representative of that way, of old, you know, white, patriarchal society, especially with the fact that, like, there's also a weird connection between fossil fuel states, you know, they rely on that, and guns, and religion, all those... Of course there is!
	It's that conservative reactionary mindset.
	The idea that nothing could ever be different, right?
	Our economics depend on this.
	And on top of that, flagging masculinity and fear and white supremacist paranoia.
	You gotta buy guns.
	All that shit comes together.
	You're exactly right.
	It's the old dying world.
	that refuses to let go.
	And it holds control over all of our politics by using the minoritarian features of our government against us.
	And I feel, you know, it's worth pointing out what the libertarian view of this, because I got into this, you know, thread on Twitter where there's, you know, a veteran who's arguing that, you know, the reason why we need to have the Second Amendment is because it keeps the government in line, that we won't have fascism, because the, I guess, elected that we won't have fascism, because the, I guess, elected officials will be so scared of the people having guns that they won't try and take over the government, for instance, or destroy the movement.
	Well, I will tell you.
	I will tell you.
	There is... Let me see how to phrase this.
	I think there is a kernel of important truth, but it's not the way that they would phrase it.
	Right?
	Okay.
	I do not think that the United States of America depends on the people having ready accessible guns in order to take over the government from tyrants.
	I do not think that's what's happening.
	I will tell you, you want to talk about the monopoly of violence?
	I have seen what this state can do.
	I have witnessed firsthand what this state can do to people.
	The idea that the state has a monopoly on violence is a problem.
	You know what I mean?
	I'm sorry, but the state is only as good as the next person who gets elected and who has control of those things.
	Philosophically, there's an idea there, but I do have to tell you that if the state wants to come after you, having an AR-15 isn't going to stop the state.
	You know?
	They got drones.
	I don't know how to tell people that.
	They got drones.
	Remember, this guy's a military man, so he has an answer for that.
	He goes, I'm not talking about like one person.
	He's envisioning Tons of people, all banding together in some sort of, you know, Red Dawn version of a fight against, you know, an oppressive regime, just like they would in 1787 or 1776.
	You know, a lot has changed, but he, I mean, he started even talking about like, you know, we can do a guerrilla warfare style thing, IEDs, the whole thing, and really just cause all sorts of havoc.
	I'm sorry, but if your mind is going to those Maybe you need to reconsider the political project you're a part of.
	I think the answer to that is that you don't need to do that.
	We need to have fair and safe elections.
	That's what's going to be the violent protector of our democracy.
	And that's the kind of thing that I think some people have just romanticized this notion of, You know, there's there's Martin Luther King and there's Gandhi.
	And then there's the guys who want to have, you know, the same kind of important change, historical, important, important change.
	But they don't have any other view other than we're going to have to shoot some people to do it.
	Man, that is so gross.
	And it's part of that reactionary mindset.
	And I want to get into this a little bit.
	You know, we have a mass shooting that happens because of readily available military grade weaponry.
	Right.
	That citizens can just get a hold of.
	What do Republicans say, Nick?
	They say that We need more guns.
	We need to arm teachers.
	By the way, fuck you if you think I'm going to carry a gun into a classroom.
	I'm going to quit if they ever ask me to carry a gun into a classroom.
	That's done.
	But I have already seen in Georgia, by the way, they don't want professors having guns because they want everybody else to have them, not the professors.
	Neither here nor there.
	Let's spend a second seeing what Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and what Senator Ted Cruz, let's go ahead and see how they're viewing this crisis, what they think has caused this problem.
	We may have to look at the design of our schools moving forward and retrofitting schools that are already built.
	And what I mean by that is there are too many entrances and too many exits to our over 8,000 campuses in Texas.
	Over 8,000 campuses.
	There aren't enough people to put a guard at every entrance and exit.
	You would be talking 25, 30, 40,000 people.
	You know, hardened schools.
	There should be one entrance in and one entrance out in all of our elementary and all of our middle schools.
	They're small enough to do that.
	There should be only one way in and that should be a well-protected entrance in.
	We already have a program where we allow any teacher in school, the district wants to be armed, to be armed.
	We train them.
	One of the things that everyone agreed is don't have all of these unlocked back doors.
	Have one door into and out of the school and have that one door armed police officers at that door.
	If that had happened, if those federal grants had gone to this school, when that psychopath arrived, the armed police officers could have taken him out and we'd have 19 children and two teachers still alive.
	You know, it's easy to go to politics.
	It's important.
	It's at the heart of the issue.
	I get that that's where the media likes to go.
	It's not.
	It's where many of the people we've talked to here like to go.
	The proposals from Democrats and the media, inevitably, when some violent psychopath murders people... A violent psychopath who's able to get a weapon so easily.
	18-year-old with two AR-15s.
	If you want to stop violent crime, The proposals the Democrats have, none of them would have stopped this.
	But why does this only happen in your country?
	I really think that's what many people around the world just, they cannot fathom.
	Why only in America?
	Why is this American exceptionalism so awful?
	You know, I'm sorry you think American exceptionalism is awful.
	I think this aspect of it.
	You know what?
	You've got your political agenda.
	God love you.
	Senator, it's not.
	I just want to understand why you do not think that guns are the problem.
	So there it is.
	We have 19 9 and 10 year olds dead, two teachers dead, a community absolutely destroyed, Nick.
	All because schools have too many entrances.
	There's just too many entrances, which, you know, if you listen to Ted Cruz, Nick, if you just build a fence and you put some guards at the fence, everything will work out.
	It's an architecture problem, Jared.
	It's not a gun problem.
	It's not a societal problem.
	It's an architectural failure.
	Yeah, you know how much it would cost to have multiple armed guards at every public school in the nation?
	Well, Nick, where do you think you get the money for multiple armed guards?
	And by the way, real fast, in your head, I want to point out something you just said.
	Probably not all of them.
	Because some people would need protecting.
	Okay, the private schools?
	Oh, we'll get to private schools in just a second.
	No, it would just happen to be in some inner cities.
	Like, if they can't afford those guards, I mean...
	You know, the people there, the people of color and the minorities and the vulnerable populations.
	I mean, we'll just see what happens.
	So, the amount of money that it would take, though, in order to carry out fences, armed guards, basically turning your public school into Guantanamo Bay.
	Where do you think that money comes from, Nick?
	Well, in theory, it would have to be from the state itself and not the federal government, right?
	Well, I assume that we're going to figure out a way, and this is where we're going.
	We're going to get money from both the federal government and the state government.
	But, Nick, here's the thing, because these people are, above all, fiscally conservative, right?
	They don't run up deficits at all.
	So, you're going to have to take money from somewhere.
	So, if you're going to pay a couple of armed guards to be at your school, and you're going to erect some fences, and, by the way, you're going to also have to buy some Where do you think that money comes from?
	You're probably also gonna have to pay for shooting drills, security experts, all that.
	We'll talk more about that. - How did all that high tech security work in the subways of New York the other day, last month?
	- Not great.
	- No, not great.
	- Where do you think that money comes from?
	So you have a budget at a school. - Yeah.
	Well, you're going to take away from teachers.
	You're going to take away from teachers.
	You're going to take away from the educational materials.
	Hopefully there's some right-wing corporations and wealthy people who will be able to supply the curriculum.
	Also, you're going to basically make life absolutely miserable at these schools.
	Funny thing, some teachers are gonna quit so they can be replaced by reactionary right-wing people, conservative people, like we've been talking about for a while.
	So the idea is to go ahead and starve the public school system.
	Deprioritize education even more, which they've been doing for decades now, and turn them into little prisons.
	We're literally talking about creating a state in which people are basically, from the time that they're five years old going into the public school system, to probably when they get out of public school and go to jail, where they are in a prison-like state from the age of five, maybe until the day that they die.
	I think it was Matt Gertz on Twitter who had placed it this way, or put it this way.
	First, the GOP, to them, teachers are these, you know, what are they, groomers, you know, of alternative sex, whatever.
	And also, we have to give them guns.
	You know what I mean?
	That is this weird twerk that exists that nothing nothing makes sense in what they all the policies they want or what they think it should be that way.
	You've thought about this probably a little more than I have because I can see your mind the spiral like where it's that can end and you're right the public school system itself is is very problematic as it is right it's always been maligned it's never been good you know although it's not true it's it's good in certain places you know uh that look a certain way and that where certain taxpayers live um
	But yes, the battle for the minds of the kids of this country, clearly, is where they want to wage this war in a long-term battle to then, you know, within decades, you know, change everybody's opinion that, like, that what?
	Christianity is the way to go and that's going to solve everyone's problems.
	And that, you know, basically root it all in that, you know.
	We are decadent, depraved, degenerates, and what we need to do is bring Jesus into our lives.
	That's it.
	And what they'll do is they'll offer the solution to our problems.
	They'll go ahead and they'll do the things that the liberals don't want to do.
	Meanwhile, by the way, one of the most absolutely disgusting articles I've seen forever.
	I know this is surprising.
	This was in The Federalist.
	This was by Jordan Boyd.
	This is the headline.
	Tragedies like the Texas shooting make a somber case for homeschooling.
	This is a brief little stretch of this.
	Tragedies like the shooting in Texas are heartbreaking, but far too common.
	Since 2018, there have been 119 school shootings wherein at least one person was injured or killed.
	119, by the way.
	Name-calling, blame-shifting, and calls for gun restrictions fill social media in the public's quest to find a solution.
	But to protect the most precious innocent lives among us, parents must educate their kids at home.
	It is clear now from the long list of school shootings in recent years that families can't trust government schools, in particular, to bring their children or teachers home safely at the end of the day.
	Nick, I got to tell you the absolute narcissism in that article, which is, hey, guess what?
	Other kids can be sacrificed to this and they can die.
	Your kids are more important and more precious.
	You need to pull them out.
	Because the government can't protect them in the schools.
	Don't worry about trying to save anybody else.
	Don't take any proactive precautions.
	Don't do anything.
	Don't address any problems whatsoever.
	What's important is your kid, little Bobby, little Sally, that they are safe at the end of the day and you can pull them out of the hellfire that is the public school system.
	It is the individualistic, Mindset, but it is also another means, and you and I both know this, the homeschooling thing Came up after desegregation and is meant to starve the public school system and once again try and destroy it.
	And this is another part of this.
	It's like, ah, don't play a role in it, go ahead and starve it.
	Is there a more entitled take on that?
	Because think about who could possibly afford homeschooling?
	Who could afford to either like stay home and not work to teach their kids?
	Because... Well, Mick, it would help if women weren't going to work!
	Yes.
	Maybe if women didn't go out and work and have their own careers and have their own independence and didn't have their own lives and their own fates.
	And by the way, if you want to be a stay-at-home mom, that is absolutely wonderful and awesome for you because that's a job in and of itself.
	But a culture that tells women, hey, if you really want to go out and get a job and you really want to have a career and you want your own money, guess what?
	You're sacrificing your child's life and safety.
	Mm-hmm like that's part of this whole rolling back of progress I mean, that's the mindset that these people are paddling It wasn't in our in my lifetime.
	There was a law that prohibited women from I think getting a loan We're getting a credit card in their own name, right?
	That that yeah, like it doesn't seem that far-fetched that we could get to that point where the yeah They're gonna try and force women to have to you know, stay at home Teach their kids clean up vacuum that whole thing barefoot and pregnant I keep thinking it's not possible, but it is.
	It's possible.
	They are signaling it loud and clear.
	And by the way, I'm so glad that you said, I don't know if there's a more self-centered take out in the world.
	Luckily, friend of the pod, Matt Iglesias.
	Matty.
	Matty.
	Just a quick public service announcement.
	For anybody listening to this, You do not have to follow Matt Iglesias on Twitter.
	You do not have to respond to Matt Iglesias on Twitter.
	You do not need to hate retweet him.
	One of the dumbest, least talented personalities in American news and politics.
	A reminder, this is the guy who just I think he got paid, and I can't even tell you how much, a Brinks truck worth of money to write a book that proposed in this American culture where people can't find jobs, they can't get health care, they can't find housing, they can't afford a basic life, the idea that America just go ahead and balloon up to a billion people in order to compete with China.
	That is, I'm sorry, intellectually bankrupt and stupid.
	Matt Iglesias, who is basically the cheerleader of not-in-my-backyardism, neoliberalism, he tweeted out this wonderful thing in the wake of this shooting at Robb Elementary.
	For all its very real problems, one shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the contemporary United States of America is one of the best places to live in all of human history, and there's a reason tons of people of all kinds come from all around the world clamber to move here.
	I've got something to say about this, Nick, but what's your reaction to this, besides it being self-centered and disgusting?
	Well, the most people, the biggest group of people that I can conceive of that are clamoring to get here are probably coming up from, you know, the southern border.
	And the reason why they're doing that is because conditions are so bad where they are.
	Anything is better than where they are, right?
	I don't even think that America ends up being this shining country on a hill anymore to them.
	I think they're about to get killed by drug lords because their kids won't join these gangs and they have to get out of there or else they're gonna be killed and that's where they go.
	How did that happen?
	Did that just spontaneously happen?
	Is it like America didn't absolutely ruin or try and ruin and destroy every stable situation within this hemisphere?
	Absolutely.
	I mean, certainly America is not helping at all in stabilization of the southern hemisphere.
	I really want to imagine, like for a moment, let's do a hypothetical.
	Imagine taking this tweet by Matt Iglesias, moments after, again, 19, 9 and 10 year old children.
	And I want to be very, very honest here, because listen, this is one of those situations where this should not be disinfected.
	Not only were they massacred in cold blood, they were so massacred that they had to rely on DNA testing and dental testing because they were unrecognizable.
	That's the horror that we're talking about here.
	I want you to imagine showing that tweet to one of the families that lost one of these children, that their kid didn't come home from this massacre.
	And I want to say this, this is the skeleton key to understanding people like Matt Iglesias and American politics.
	You know why he can say America is the greatest country in the history of the world?
	Because he lives an enchanted existence.
	He has incredible amounts of money.
	He's incredibly privileged.
	On top of that, he lives in a very bougie part of the country where he doesn't have to think about school shootings.
	He doesn't have to worry about these types of things.
	This is a problem in Texas.
	This is a problem that poor people have to worry about.
	And the problem with neoliberalism, and I think that we all know this, You can live a comfortable life in the United States of America and not worry about this shit.
	You can pay to not deal with this shit.
	And there is, it's sort of like, they have these in LA, they have to, the expressways.
	We have freeways.
	Well, not freeways, but where like you pay a little bit extra and you get in a lane that doesn't have as much traffic.
	Tollways.
	Tollways, yes.
	You got those, right?
	Yeah, we have a few, but people in California, they're not so happy about that.
	We have them in Chicago.
	I grew up all over the place, but in California, there's a couple.
	Well, that is the American existence, which is, yeah, you don't have to be wealthy and you can live here.
	Well, you can't really afford anywhere to live and you're going to live in a place that has industrial pollution.
	Maybe it doesn't even have clean water.
	Your kids aren't going to get an education.
	You can pay extra to get on that tollway, right?
	You can pay extra to get organic food that hasn't been modified.
	You can go ahead and pay extra to have clean water.
	You can go ahead and pay extra and have your kids go to an academy that has a history of placing people in major colleges.
	We've even seen celebrities and incredibly rich people, like, baking the system and breaking laws to do this.
	These for-profit services are there to basically erect a wall around people like Iglesias and other wealthy white Americans that they don't have to worry about this shit.
	That's a problem for other people and that's where we're going.
	A secondary America where your kids basically go to school at a prison where they might still get shot because these people aren't stopping shootings.
	I mean they're just not.
	And on top of that, like most people are having to work for absolutely no money and or going to prison.
	Meanwhile, you'll be able to live a very sort of charmed American life.
	That's what they're creating.
	It's the extra services and people like Iglesias aren't even able to understand that maybe you shouldn't say something like that in the wake of one of the most grotesque incidents in American history.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's interesting because it's isolationism on an individual level.
	Yes.
	So, first of all, we want America first, so we want to isolate America.
	We don't want to deal with... You know, it's interesting, the $40 billion we're going to send to Ukraine, the people that kind of rail against it, from what I've seen, are Republicans.
	You know, why are we sending that over there?
	And then there's... it's a weird alignment, like, with Russia, because, like, they kind of agree with what Russia is doing, so they don't want to, you know, get them all upset and mired in a worse campaign.
	But then, yeah, you can isolate yourself In that same bubble inside of America, which is the same reason why no one wants to, like, help other people with health care, for instance, or be a part of the system.
	And it used to be, and I'm glad you put it that way, it used to be that if you're an American, you didn't worry about what was happening in the countries that you were exploiting or killing or destabilizing or assassinating people and, you know, doing all that.
	Like, you're just like, oh, why can't Mexico get its shit together?
	You know?
	God, I wonder what's happening over there in Chile.
	Luckily, I don't have to think about that very much, right?
	Back in the day, it used to be that Americans at least had a standard of living and comfort.
	Now, all of a sudden, you're exactly right.
	It's like, I know that this is maybe ridiculous sounding.
	It's almost like these subscription services.
	Like, so for instance, like you're paying for like a Hulu, but you still have to watch commercials.
	And that's like the basic plan.
	But you can pay a little bit more and you don't have to watch commercials.
	But that's on a larger scale.
	You're exactly right.
	It's the individual exclusion from suffering.
	Yeah, it's Elon muskification of all this.
	So that's what he wants to do like Twitter.
	You know, I'll spend 75 bucks to get a better seat on the plane.
	And that's what they're doing now.
	It was interesting.
	I think the ideal is the idealism born out of the revolution.
	Let's just say the 1776 where there was a There's a shared community sense of, we stood up to the British, we kicked them out, we have our own country to build.
	I feel the land of opportunity, the melting pot, all those things, there's a finite, there's a limit to how long that lasts, I suppose.
	It only lasted a couple of years.
	I mean, let's, okay.
	Well, no, no, I'm serious.
	So after a couple of years of the revolution, basically all these like, what we would now call middle class people, were just like, why did we do that?
	Because they hated the Federalists.
	They hated the people who created the country.
	We don't talk about that, but immediately they were like, all the spoils go to this small cadre of people, and meanwhile, we're all just screwed with our pants on.
	And you're right, though.
	That myth keeps sort of getting recreated and rebuilt and reestablished and re-fortified.
	That myth right now, everybody knows it's bullshit.
	Well, no, I think it's been chipped away over the years.
	I'm not even sure it's been re-fortified.
	I think it's been, it was built.
	And it was kind of high, and then ever since the two years, however long it took, it's just been worn away and eroded.
	You can point to things like George W. running an election saying, I'll pay you $200 to vote for me.
	And you want to talk about that, W. Bush, with Katrina.
	That was one of those moments where a lot of people, white people by the way, were like, what's going on down there in New Orleans?
	How could they possibly let this happen?
	This is America.
	And, you know, meanwhile, people of color are like, this is what happens when you don't see, because it used to be, speaking of that sort of force field or fence, it used to be that white people had that.
	They didn't have to go into the red line neighborhoods.
	They didn't have to go into these places where like the racism and the segregation was taking place.
	Then all of a sudden it was like, hey, by the way, we can make more money if we kind of treat other people like that.
	And it just grows and grows and grows until, and I'm glad you brought up the plane, it's very apt, man.
	Because it's like, if you get on a plane and you don't buy upgrades, you get treated like shit!
	And it's because there's a financial incentive that they want, you know?
	Where it's like, I think on some planes it's like, you buy your ticket and you don't realize that you couldn't bring something on board with you.
	Right.
	They're like, you should have paid 15 extra.
	It's that stratification.
	And that stratification leads to incredible profits, but it also leads to people who are living in their own worlds.
	And why would they want to chance anything to change anything?
	That's why people like Iglesias look down on anybody who wants to make things better or really actually change anything.
	It's a direct path to when we have mass migration due to the global warming, where we're going to have It's gonna be this dystopia of these rich people that are have able to like spend money like like the purge And they're gonna keep the people who were poor out and they're gonna be clamoring at these fences or whatever it is Well, there's water somewhere they have and they can't get it.
	We're not gonna want to share it They're not gonna want to you know Do the humanitarian thing.
	That's what it's going to turn into.
	And that's sort of wrapping up the gun thing.
	I'm going to need my guns because at some point that could happen too.
	People are going to be trying to kill me for my water.
	That is what's going to happen and that's the other sort of fever dream which is probably one of the reasons why they want to keep these guns.
	Well, and all of this absolutely plays a role because one of the things that you find in history is that there's sort of, when you start having organized law enforcement, organized law enforcement is put in place in order to track down runaway slaves and to make sure that none of like the piss ants are going to go out and start a revolution, right?
	They basically go out and they're like, well, you can't steal property and you can't try and start a revolution because you're going to end up behind bars.
	But that's base-level law enforcement.
	There's extra-level, diamond-level law enforcement, right?
	All of a sudden, then you're paying like your own security force.
	So, for instance, you want to talk about someone like Elon Musk.
	How many people surround him constantly as private security?
	You know what I mean?
	Like, the richest man in the world has security details the likes of which you've never seen.
	Because it's not just stuff that you and I can't afford.
	It's stuff that you and I can't even fathom, right?
	It's like, he's not gonna go through TSA.
	He's not, you know, he's not gonna be with the rest of us assholes waiting in line at Au Bon Pain, you know?
	He's got his own bubble around him and it's going to reach a certain point.
	You remember, I want to say it was a couple years ago, Bill Barr, when Bill Barr got real wild and he was like giving a bunch of speeches during the BLM protests, right?
	And he was like, well, number one, he said, Christianity is the only thing that gives us laws and we have to go back to it.
	But do you remember there was like a couple of days there where he kept saying, maybe if you don't appreciate law enforcement, maybe it won't be there, right?
	And it was like this weird threat.
	It was like, oh, you want to protest?
	Well, guess what?
	Maybe cops aren't going to show up when your shit's getting messed up or when people are trying to steal from you.
	We're going to look at What's the worst airline?
	What's the cheapest airline?
	Southwest?
	No, it's Frontier.
	Isn't Frontier the one where, like, I don't know, you gotta pay extra to actually have a seat?
	Well, I think Southwest is like that, too.
	Like, you don't have a seat.
	Yeah, you gotta stand up, almost like in a subway in New York, you know?
	The plane's taking off.
	There's going to be, like, that bottom-level law enforcement, which is, yeah, they'll show up if, like, There's a person who might shoot multiple people and there might be political backlash.
	Maybe they'll show up, maybe they won't.
	It's like the firefighters who are like, well, we'll show up, but guess what?
	You're gonna have to pay for the water.
	And then there's going to be the wealthy who are the ones who are being protected.
	Because they're the ones who are making up for the lack of investment in all of this shit.
	Well, they'll have their own private, you know, security.
	They'll have their own private security.
	Yeah.
	I mean, listen, we saw what's happening is these cops don't necessarily want to put their lives in harm's way to protect innocent kids.
	right like sort of seems like what was going on there now again you know it's reasonable to me that if parents are flocking there they need some cops out there to keep them away so they don't get shot either um but uh it's and then two of the cops did get wounded so they tried to engage but you know it just seems like um it's possible that you're getting situations where These cops, under the guise of their training, or they can't risk, you know, whatever, will not be those heroes that we thought that they always were.
	You know, 9-11 was this moment of just incredible heroism.
	Those guys in the fire department, they probably knew they weren't going to get out of that, right?
	Especially the second tower.
	And they went up there anyway.
	And so, we might be seeing a mindset that's taking over where we don't have that anymore.
	And they're not willing to risk their own lives to do their jobs, basically, and then we get tragedies.
	Which, by the way, could be averted if we fucking had better gun laws.
	No, absolutely.
	But what you're talking about, when we talk about having these gun laws, we're talking about a country that we think still exists.
	Right.
	Like, the people who are in office, and I've said this before, and I don't mean this to be glib, they're not actually in office to make our lives better.
	They might think that they are because they think the free market makes everyone's lives better, right?
	There's like an ideology there that a lot of these people are sort of working on.
	Like, again, I assume if you loaded Joe Manchin up with, what was it, sodium penthol, I assume that he would tell you, I think capitalism and the market and neoliberalism makes people's lives better.
	But that also hides the fact that they're not there to use the power and the funds and the resources of the state to answer these questions.
	Because neoliberalism says that anytime the state tries to put its thumb on the balance in any situation, it fails.
	Because that's tyranny.
	It's deciding one thing or another that everybody can't agree on, right?
	So what happens here?
	We reach a point where financial incentives, wealth incentives, right?
	So where are we now at this moment as these shootings are happening?
	Public schools are underfunded.
	Thanks, Ronald Reagan.
	Thanks to all the Republicans who have done that over and over.
	We have private schools, which are now sort of main lines into the professional managerial class in order to go up, get a good college education and do it, hopefully not having debt.
	The poor in public education have to load up on debt to even have a shot at joining and ascending, and then they're going to be paying things off.
	Those are financial incentives.
	Nick, we're talking now about a situation where the wealthy are planning on taking over public educations, the curriculum of it.
	And probably, by the way, I mean, some of the some of the people listening to this are going to have grandkids who are going to rob elementary as presented by Microsoft.
	I mean, really, that's what we're talking about.
	And meanwhile, you'll have private schools, because that's what matters in all of this.
	A lot of them segregated in terms of not just wealth, but also race.
	Let's be honest.
	They're going to basically be teaching kids how to run that.
	Right?
	Because you have to have managers who are running the security state.
	You have to have managers who are making sure that you're getting drills and simulations and all that shit.
	Like, the market will look for things to profit from.
	It's not looking to solve problems.
	It's looking to create businesses that can either solve the problem or profit off the problem.
	And that's it.
	That's literally the basis of this entire thing.
	Right, and capitalism does benefit people, but not all the people.
	Very few people, in comparison to the rest of the country.
	That's why capitalism is very problematic when you're going to mix it with, you know, a democracy.
	Now obviously, you know, the solution would almost be communism, because everyone is equal, but that doesn't really work in practice either, so obviously there needs to be something we have in between.
	But this isn't even capitalism.
	This is captured capitalism.
	Hypercapitalism isn't even... like Adam Smith, if you dug Adams... maybe we should dig Adam Smith up.
	Alright, let's do it.
	You want to exhume him?
	Maybe grave robbing of Adam Smith is... Where is he buried?
	That's a great question.
	Probably like in Boston.
	No, my guess is somewhere in England.
	Oh, yeah.
	So, Adam Smith even warned about this in Wealth of Nations, published 1776, which is the outline of how capitalism is supposed to work.
	This is the person that always says, listen, the baker, the candlestick maker, all these people, they do their own things in order for their own self-interest and they end up helping each other because of the invisible hand of the market.
	But meanwhile, in his books, Adam Smith is like, bad things happen When capitalism gets all out of whack, it's a delicate ecosystem.
	So what we've seen in the past few decades with neoliberalism, it isn't even what somebody would actually call capitalism.
	It's capitalism on steroids.
	It's capitalism just completely unrestrained.
	So in all of this, like, none of this is nuts.
	There's a reason why 80 to 90% support this stuff.
	This isn't even controversial.
	It's literally a system that is aggressively working against 90% of the people.
	And we're even reaching a point now, I'm sorry, but our economy is in bad shape.
	And I talked to you a little bit before we started, the people of Davos, who are the people who run this thing, they're even meeting and they're like, I don't know if this system's working right now.
	And by the way, their entire purpose is to create more free markets and push capitalism further and further because they have a religious indoctrination towards capitalism.
	and neoliberalism.
	But that's the problem is it's actually working against human interests in order to continue accumulating capital.
	So capitalism wants to get into hyper capitalism and it currently is.
	It's waiting on its next form like a Pokemon getting ready to like reach like its highest ascendance.
	And I gotta tell you, nothing good happens at that level.
	Right.
	It's just weird that, you know, the expectation in a capitalist society would be that you just, every quarter your value goes up.
	Every quarter over quarter.
	Now, built into that is, yeah, we're going to have every eighth quarter, we're going to have a big drop, and then it would start all over again.
	A big drop!
	We're going to have an apocalyptic blow-up of the system.
	Yeah.
	I mean, and here's the thing.
	You'll have, whatever, eight quarters in a row, and then it drops a little bit, and then you have another eight quarters, and then it drops really big, right?
	So, it's not always the huge ones all the time, but still, it just devastates Huge swaths of the country.
	It does.
	For no reason.
	And on the individual level, here's the thing, Nick.
	Like a lot of our listeners, they love their kids.
	They want their kids to be safe.
	Here's the evilness of this machine.
	It's literally going to get to the point where it's like, and I'm reducing this down for metaphorical content, where a thing pops up on your computer screen and it's like, do you want your child to be shot at school?
	And you're going to click no as quickly as possible.
	And guess what?
	There are options there that you have to pay extra for.
	And why would you do it?
	Because you care about your child.
	Right?
	Do you want your child to have a better life?
	Absolutely you do.
	Are you willing to pay for it?
	Yes, absolutely.
	These are the options given to us.
	But we also still, while we're doing that, we have to look at it and say, oh my god, this is horror.
	You know what I mean?
	Like it's literally the most grotesque thing imaginable.
	And that's what keeps this Really awful system spinning in the direction it's going is because it is it is one of the most horrific things imaginable, right?
	I mean you're describing mass migration to private schools basically or homeschooling either way, but like Imagine yeah, if you deplete the public school system even more and like, you know and reduce it even more then it becomes even worse Won't get the same kind of funding at that point and then you'll have these these random schools that you know, maybe they're not even I'm sorry, but if you're a teacher right now, my condolences.
	And I'm a teacher.
	but they're a school, you can send them to so you don't break the law, and these kids are learning God knows what. - If they don't repeal that law, by the way.
	If they don't get rid of the necessity.
	But they might not, because you're exactly right.
	Teachers are gonna quit, because, I'm sorry, but if you're a teacher right now, my condolences.
	And I'm a teacher.
	I have to tell you, the existence is shitty right now.
	So people are gonna leave, and they're gonna have people come in who want to exist in these situations, right?
	They're going to be given curricula that is controlled by the wealthy, by these corporations, by these reactionaries.
	And Nick, are they going to learn real history?
	No.
	Are they going to learn anything about critical thinking?
	No.
	Are they going to learn anything that could possibly create new generations that will question the system?
	Definitely not.
	No, because they don't quote-unquote need to.
	The better people are already in better places.
	They're already in other schools learning how to manage these people because they see them like cattle, which is why they I'm sorry, but this is why they don't even blanch it them being slaughtered.
	They do not see them as being equal to them.
	They don't even see them as the same sort of species.
	All this comes back down to just just just get more guns off the streets.
	Oh, the answer is not more guns.
	The answer is not guards and fences.
	Oh my god, it's so repulsive.
	And by the way, what is the value of all these active shooter drills that all these kids have been doing for all these years now?
	Traumatizing them, teaching them how to follow orders and obey.
	I mean, that's a big chunk of it.
	Right, because, you know, what we find out is it doesn't really matter.
	It's like when we used to do the get under our chairs for a nuclear war preparation.
	Like, that's about the same thing.
	And what did it do to us?
	For me, I don't know if you had those.
	Did you have those when you were a kid?
	Oh yeah, for sure.
	You know, those were terrifying, you know, and then the day after it came out and that was even more terrifying.
	So, you know, listen, what they probably should do is release the fucking photos.
	Show the photos of those kids.
	Show them what happened.
	Oh, by the way, the false flag thing you didn't bring up either is another one of these outcroppings.
	First of all, they thought it was a trans person who had shot everybody and it turns out that person who they targeted was actually a real person who doesn't live in Texas and is still alive.
	False flag is always the big one.
	Probably as quickly as, don't politicize this.
	So, you know, all those things are just on the table at this point if you need to try and convince people.
	It ain't gonna be Jesus.
	Jesus is not gonna convince people to get guns off of the streets.
	No, but they'll figure out any reason that they possibly can to push that project, but it is.
	It's the guns.
	I mean, listen, we are not the only country in the world that has mental illness.
	I mean, capitalism has made the majority of us mentally ill.
	We are not a degenerate Culture.
	We have problems.
	We have real issues.
	We are a sick society in the ways that most Western powers are sick societies now, but they're not all massacring their kids constantly.
	That's not what's happening.
	The list of countries that are democracies that have strict gun laws and then do not have any issues with mass shootings is so long, you know, that you can't, there's no other way to argue that, like, that they don't, that gun laws won't work.
	No.
	We know it.
	We're well aware of it.
	All of these... I was gonna say arguments.
	They're not arguments, Nick.
	They're lies.
	They're lies.
	They know that it's guns.
	And what's happening, by the way?
	All these red states are pushing for unlicensed Uh, concealed carry.
	The Supreme Court, the stolen Supreme Court of the United States is probably going to hand out a ruling that makes it easier for people to have unlicensed concealed carry.
	They literally want to create a world outside of their bubbles because, hey, you know who's meeting this weekend?
	The NRA.
	Do you think that they allow guns at their convention?
	No, they fucking don't.
	Because it's not about them.
	It's about everybody on the outside.
	Keep making money off of their fear, their paranoia, even the possibility you could radicalize them into doing these types of things.
	But it's about keeping it out of your bubble, keeping it out of your sphere, continuing to use that toll road while everybody else just descends into this.
	I wonder if we repeal the Second Amendment because that's the big thing they cling to.
	It's like we have the God-given right to do that, to have a gun.
	And if we repeal that, It would probably end up having a civil war, right?
	All those people would then say, absolutely not, I'm not giving up my guns, you can't have them back, right?
	Like, I think that's the other poison of the country over all these years.
	I think that is one of those things that is large enough and ingrained enough and poisonous enough that that would possibly lead to something like that.
	For me right now, and I'm sure you're the same way, I would just be happy having more people like O'Rourke raising hell over this thing and eventually getting Something done.
	AR-15s, AK-47s, bump stocks, you name it.
	Get them off the fucking street.
	Yeah, and then... Pay them whatever they want.
	I don't give a shit how much you want to pay people.
	Buy them back.
	Give them a ton of money.
	Just get them fucking gone.
	The guns you bought were under a thousand dollars.
	I know.
	You know, that's nothing.
	Anyway, and Chuck Schumer, I've said this years ago, you might remember, I'm like, it's time for him to go.
	Has to go.
	But like the political theater we saw that Beto O'Rourke did, listen, how quickly did they get an abortion bill written that they knew was going to fail?
	A day or two days?
	They won't even get that far with this.
	They might as well just write the bill and send it up and okay whatever it's gonna happen filibustered or whatever.
	They can't even do that.
	Even though Manchin said hey it feels different now.
	It does.
	It feels different.
	We're talking you know.
	But like it's already been longer than it took them to do a bill for abortion.
	What are they doing?
	What the fuck are they doing?
	They lack political courage.
	Yeah.
	They do.
	They lack political courage.
	They're terrified they're going to be called extremists.
	I said this, and I want to articulate it one last time.
	Nick, every time there's a shooting, and in the last few years, Newtown was the moment.
	I think all of us saw Newtown.
	We're like, something has to happen.
	Kindergarteners, 20 kindergartners, something has to happen.
	It didn't.
	And then from then on, every mass shooting, maybe one or two people would be like, maybe we should do something about guns while the rest of us screamed about it.
	And what does the right wing do?
	What do the conspiracy theorists do?
	False flag in order to take your guns.
	They're not even trying and they're still getting accused of trying to take guns.
	It is a lack of political courage.
	And you're exactly right.
	They have to go.
	They have to go.
	There is no messing around with this anymore.
	They have to be replaced.
	All right, everybody.
	Man, what a shitty week.
	What an awful, awful thing.
	I hope you and yours are well.
	I hope your kids are safe.
	Condolences to everybody touched by this thing.
	We'll be back next week.
	If you need us before then, you can find Nick at Can You Hear Me?
	SMH.
	You can find me at J.Y.
	Sexton.

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