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April 21, 2024 - Stew Peters Show
01:00:24
Veterans swear an oath but are persecuted when they continue their oath after service
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Time Text
Veterans being labeled as extremists.
A recent report says that this is because of negative experiences in the military.
Because of negative experiences in the military, some veterans then turn to extremist activities.
Well, if you couldn't guess, I'm going to tell you, we have some theories about this, Jason and I. So today we're going to talk to you about it.
So stick with us.
Don't go away.
We start now.
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Okay, so today I must say that we are...
Well, I don't know about Jason.
We'll bring him in here in a second.
But I have some pretty specific feelings on this whole thing.
Veterans going to extremist movements and things like that.
It's quite an interesting take that other people have.
So anyway, let's bring Jason in.
Hey Jason, how are you doing today, sir?
I like your shirt.
Dr.
Pepper is not a sponsor, by the way, but a very great soda pop.
Do you want me to wreck your day?
Yes, absolutely.
I'd love for you to wreck my fine Sunday.
Okay.
So when we're done, for your last relaxing drink of the night, go get a can of Coke and a can of root beer and pour it together and drink it.
That's Dr.
Pepper.
Yeah, you know why I'm doing this?
Because somebody absolutely ruined it for me, and now I want to ruin it for you, and I'm sorry for ruining it for you folks out there.
But, yeah, now I can't even drink Dr.
Pepper unless I get something out of Texas from the original bottling factory that's actually done with cane sugar, where it tastes right.
Otherwise, all I taste is Barks for a beer.
So, thank you, Chach.
I love you, but you're terrible.
Well, full disclosure that two of my top five favorite soda pops would be Dr.
Pepper and, or I'm sorry, would be Coke and root beer of any kind.
And Dr.
Pepper's up there too.
So, I'm going to try it.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Yeah.
Anyway...
Man.
And I'm sorry, anybody listening, if you are a devout Dr.
Pepper fan, I'm sorry that we...
You know what this reminds me of?
Real quick.
Last summer, our oldest son got married, and the middle one was the best man, and he gave his speech, and he was talking about how much he loved his big brother and what an influence he was.
And then he dropped the, well, you know, my big brother was the one that taught me that Santa Claus wasn't real.
And then the look of sheer terror on his face as he looked out upon the crowd and saw there was probably 10 to 18 kids there.
And he ended up extremely sad for a few hours because there were some drinks involved.
So this reminded me of that.
So thank you for that, by the way.
Jason, veterans going to extremist movements and having extremist ideas and then also acting out extremist activities.
What say you?
I just hate when they paint with such a broad brush.
You know, the headline itself is grabbing.
That's what people are going to be drawn towards.
That's what you and I read.
You know, veterans turn to extremism, yada yada yada.
You know, when I started reading through these things, a great deal of these traumas are all things that people can experience at home too.
There isn't like one deriding factor in here that kind of tells me that it's a military specific thing.
And so then my question becomes, well, who the...
I almost won an F-word already.
But who's wasting the money to get these studies done to find out any of this trash?
You know, I sit here and I read, and when asked how they came to believe in their extremist viewpoints, most veterans said that it became highly interested in politics after the historic events as follows.
Donald Trump's rise to the presidency, the attack on the Capitol on 6 January, the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the 2020 riots following George Floyd, The coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election, Bush v.
Gore.
None of that's militant.
Right.
So, take the same sampling demographic from the rest of the world, compare that to the veteran population, and let's see if there's actually something here.
If I go sample a very specific pool for frogs, I'm probably going to find how many frogs are in that pool, but that's not going to tell me if there's any more frogs in that pool as comparison to another pool.
This is simple shit.
They have to quit saying things like this because it puts a negative stigma or apparatus of thought over who veterans are.
You know, it's foolishness, once again.
Yes, I couldn't agree with you more.
And just for full clarity, folks, this article that Jason referred to, we found on marinetimes.com.
It was on the Marine Times.
At least that's where I saw it.
And I'm on the Military Times.
Okay, so they're all one and the same.
The headline of the article is, Report...
Veterans with extremist views had bad experiences in the military.
And so, like, this one struck me because I'm thinking to myself, well, no shit.
We all had bad experiences in the military.
I mean, there wasn't, it wasn't, I don't know that it matters how long you served.
Jason, how many years did you serve?
I don't even know, 10-ish.
Okay, 10.
I did 18 years and 10 months.
I had a lot of shitty times.
Jason had a lot of shitty times.
I know guys who served, you know, one contract, so six years, and they had shitty times.
But we're not out here doing extremist activities.
No, and what?
I mean, so somebody puts on a tinfoil hat and has some beliefs in what they think is going on in the world because 90% of the things that were spoon-fed through traditional media just doesn't make any sense.
You can't help it if people want to start trying to add things together to make them actually add up versus being told 2 plus 2 is 7.
Right.
I don't think half of this stuff isn't even extremist.
Just the labeling on the top is what's troubling.
Yes, well, and because, as you mentioned, this is what helps to paint the picture of who veterans are in this country.
And when we already have a situation going on that doesn't necessarily always paint veterans in a very positive light, this type of stereotype, if you will, is not something that is advantageous to the goal that we're trying to achieve here.
For example, the goal of the Richard Leonard Show, as well as the goal of Disgruntled over on YouTube, is to bridge the gap between veteran culture and military folks And families, or however you want to classify it, and the civilian culture that may not know very much about who or what we are.
And so there's also not a lot of information in the media about who or what we are.
And you only get the two extremes, right?
You only get, like, these huge breakthrough things.
For example, the PACT Act, right?
Big, huge, positive thing happening for veterans.
If veterans are heroes, we should take care of them.
Let's do this thing called the PACT Act.
Which hasn't proven to really be working the way they said it was.
Although I think it is working, kind of.
And then you get the opposite end of the spectrum, where now veterans are extremists because they had a bad experience in the military.
Right?
Well, that's the thing, right?
You're either Chris Kyle or Loser Lyle.
There's never any in-between.
There's nothing regular guy about it.
I've never heard Loser Lyle.
I like that.
I was thinking about it this whole time, and it was only because it rhymed with Chris Kyle.
That's what it is, right?
It's always the two extremes.
We never hit center mass.
It's the thing that we should continually report on, and we should always discuss.
And that's why I think a show like this can be beneficial to somebody.
It used to be that six degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Well, now we're six degrees of a veteran.
So, you're never that far away.
You know one, either they're the wicked, uncomfortable dude or gal that shows up to family functions that you really haven't figured out how they fit in, or, you know, a neighbor mows his lawn at 0-dark-30 and his fatigues.
Yeah, you know, or just the normal dude that, you know, I want to consider myself normal, but I know I'm not.
You know, just a normal dude trying to make his way.
You know, you gotta be talking about that guy.
It's more fun to talk about the dude mowing his lawn, you know, at 0400.
But, you know, on a whole, we just kind of sit there and we ride in the middle.
And things like this do nothing to help with those stereotypes, as you alluded to before.
You know, that's always a tough part, you know.
If somebody likes to stay to themselves and they happen to be a veteran, well, they're a loner.
We gotta pay attention to them.
No, they just don't want to deal with your shit.
That is a possibility.
Yeah, but it's a possibility with anybody who's a loner, right?
But on the whole, and you and I both know those veterans, they're not, the guys that I know that just kind of live out in the country, stay to themselves, call, I mean, they're still, they have a social life, it's just different, but they're not actively engaged in their community.
They just want to be alone.
They're the best guys on planet Earth that I know.
Yeah.
They're laid back.
They're just looking to go along to get along.
They want to raise their own food a little bit.
They want to be self-sufficient.
They want to challenge themselves in different ways.
They don't want to be part of the rat race.
Yeah, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
They've done that.
They've played that game.
And furthermore, out of anybody, they've earned the right and deserve to be able to do Whatever it is that they decide they want to do with whatever years it is they have left.
But let's take a quick look.
So this RAND study that's outlined in this article, it says here that they interviewed 21 veterans who had indicated in a RAND survey that they held extremist views.
So they talk a little bit about what the things are that these folks talked about.
So let's just real quickly go through it.
Three-quarters of the veterans interviewed were forthcoming about negative life events during their military service.
One veteran described developing post-traumatic stress disorder after recovering casualties from the bombing in Beirut, which killed 241 service members in 1983.
Okay.
Okay.
That is traumatic.
Whenever you go into a space or you are going and your job is to collect the wounded, that's a tough gig.
It's a tough job.
And I imagine that it does spark some questions in your mind.
About who sent you here and why.
Humanity as a whole.
Maybe questions about your faith.
It sparks a lot of those things.
But it is not at all any kind of way, shape, or form a basis for anti-American extremist activities.
Right.
Whatever that activity is.
However, you know what I mean?
That definition we can give to activities, whatever that is.
Right.
Another veteran said that he developed substance abuse problems.
This is a great one.
Developed substance abuse problems while serving and drank because he disliked the routine of the military and being told what to do.
Well, guess what there, Chief?
That's what you signed up for.
Yeah.
Welcome to the 90%.
Yeah.
You know, I don't think because, you know, you develop a drinking habit while you're in the military, you're going to go join Antifa.
That kind of seems like a strength.
Yeah.
And so here's my question.
Here's my question about this.
When this guy went to join Antifa or the Proud Boys or whoever it is, and he's going through his extremist interview or however they do that, So what's your problem with America, brother?
Well, you know, I didn't like that they told me what to do when I was in the military.
And, you know, screw them.
I don't understand how anybody thinks.
Right.
Yeah, the same guy.
Same dude, right?
He went to school.
Apparently he was the only person in school that was ever told what to do.
He was the only person that had a job outside the military that was never told what to do.
You know, I mean, blaming being told what to, that's part of, you know, we're all a part of society.
There's always a bigger fish.
Yeah, it's a cop-out.
How about this?
How about this loser, Lyle?
How about you're just a weak-minded mental midget?
And why don't you just admit that you signed up and you joined the military and it wasn't your gig?
You couldn't do it.
You couldn't hack it.
Nobody likes being told.
I'll tell you what, anybody is welcome to ask my wife how much Richard Leonard likes to be told what to do.
And she'll take about half of a quarter of a second to respond to you.
But somehow I made it through.
That is...
I don't know, man.
Have we read the list of the groups that were highlighted here that people ended up falling into?
All I read was QAnon, Proud Boys, and Antifa.
And there's another one, the Freedom Something or Another.
Yeah, black nationalism, or white supremacy, or they're supporting the conspiracy theories like QAnon or the Great Replacement Theory, right?
Yep.
Well, I mean, quite frankly, some of those things, in all these things, I think anybody can see something in them.
You know, maybe not to akin yourself to one of them.
You know, I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying because you hated being told what to do, and you started drinking, that that's a natural progression.
I don't think it's the magical 14th step or whatever it is.
While you go through that substance abuse issue, I don't know if one of those steps is to renounce your...
What is it?
What are these?
Your man card?
Your extremist views, right?
That isn't one on the list.
So, you know, just the absurdity of it on its face and some of these groups and that absurdity, and then the reasons become.
You're going to tell me, too, like another one on here?
All right, so you had to live through the great moment of 2000 and deal with the news talking to you about a hanging chad, and then somehow the courts adjudicated on that, and that turned you into an extremist?
Hold on now.
I was quite young in 2000.
What's a hanging Chad?
You're significantly older than I am.
Significant, my ass.
So, this thing is such a dink.
But this thing was, they had, I believe it was a mechanical ballot where you punched a hole.
And so even though you had punched a hole, like, if the hole punch didn't complete and they called it a Chad, the little...
That you would be removing from the ballot was still hanging.
They said, well, you didn't actually complete the entirety of the action.
Thus, that wasn't an actual intended vote.
Or then the argument, the counter argument was, well, of course, I tried to do it, but the punch didn't completely go.
Like, it was foolishness.
Don't get me wrong.
We're discussing semantics, but, you know, that's what that thing went down to.
But somehow, just living through that was enough to drive you into an extremist viewpoint.
I have to believe you had a leaning that you were going there anyway.
It wasn't...
The hanging chad did not push you over the edge.
Yeah, and I have a feeling that...
The RAND Corporation is not being a thousand percent forthcoming with all the information from these veterans that they collected.
I'm sure that there is a lot more word said.
And they word souped it, of course, to make it look like they want it to look.
The other thing outlined here was, let's see, some women veterans described physical, psychological, and sexual abuse they experienced.
At the hands of fellow service members.
And, you know, this is something that also can happen in the civilian world anywhere.
But what I will say is that military sexual trauma is something that is extremely under talked about and under adjudicated.
Absolutely.
Yeah, fear of reprisal.
Nobody wants to come forward.
Or it could be somebody in your chain of command.
I mean, there's a million different reasons why people don't deal with that.
And would I say, I mean, number one, would that drive me to extremism?
I don't know, but just the fact that it does occur and it's underreported and that it's under adjudicated is absolutely paramount.
So again, I mean, that's a huge problem, but it seems like a subset of extremist views.
Yes.
Yeah, I agree.
I'm not trying to insinuate that it makes a good case for extremism, but out of all the things that we've read on this list, that is the one thing that the government has gotten crazy wrong.
These things happen all the time in the military, just like they happen all the time in other places, and they get swept under the rug, in my opinion.
So that's all I'll say about that because I don't have any data or anything like that.
I just know a little bit about it.
Another show.
Yeah, that could probably be a whole other series of shows.
Should be.
And then, you know, some veterans said they faced problems while transitioning into civilian life.
They experienced financial issues, severed romantic relationships, and became homeless, and some were arrested and imprisoned.
Well, news for you.
News flash.
Beep, beep, beep.
Welcome to the party.
Yeah, right?
Not only veterans who joined Antifa or the Proud Boys or whatever had financial problems and lost their wife and children or whatever that looks like.
Yep.
It happened and does happen all of the time.
Yep.
And people make it through.
They figure it out and they trudge through this big pool of shit to get to the other side and they make it through all the time.
Still not a good case.
To be an extremist.
And so now we have all of this out there.
And I'll say that none of this is really a secret.
These things have been talked about here and there over the years.
I wonder why it is that they link just these things to extremism.
Isn't there any other life events or anything else going on with these folks?
Right.
Or is it that these veterans, this is what they say.
Because I had to fish bodies out of the rubble in Beirut in 1983, I'm going to join Q. Right.
It makes me mad.
I'm pissed off at the government, and I think that we need to take action.
So because I had to fish out those bodies, and that was traumatic to me, I'm going to join Q and we're going to dethrone the government, or whatever it is that they say they're going to do.
Right.
There's nothing else going on there.
Well, right, let's not, you know, again, fully hypothetical, and I'm speaking with absolutely zero knowledge, but, you know, I would assume there is an opportunity or a potentiality that somebody could have lost a few jobs in between 83 and flash forward, you know, 2024.
You know, were none of those, were there other stressful events in between that may have driven you in this direction?
We're always looking for that spark point, like the flash point.
And if you just have to go back and you're going through trauma, as a member of the military, hey, sweet story for you civilians out there that are listening.
We all have trauma.
We've got bags of trauma that we carry around with us that we don't want anybody else to carry or even hear about.
Period.
Trauma is a pretty natural thing or normal thing for veterans to have, you know, and we react and we live based upon those traumas.
Those traumas are never going to go away.
I'm always going to be hypersensitive in a group of people.
Now, does that change how I operate?
Sure.
Maybe I walk through a supermarket in weird ways and my wife doesn't want to go with me to a supermarket.
You know, because I'm mean mugging everybody just because of my old experiences.
Well, that's just the way it is for me now.
You know, it's different, but that didn't push me down a road to do, you know, psychopathic things.
Yeah, you're not trying to take over St.
Paul's.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
Well, who would?
I love the politicians that have to be in charge of that stuff, right?
But, you know, this is the thing, is that you're trying to get back to that first thing or that one thing that caused all of these other bad decisions to happen.
Like, in life, we all make shit decisions.
We make bad calls.
And when you're trying to go back and find the root cause or the reason or the excuse...
Especially when you're in the military, you can kind of fall back on any of those traumas.
Like your bag is full and just pull one out.
Oh yeah, this one works today.
You know?
Oh yeah, I lost another job because I didn't want to wake up.
Here's another one.
Well, and I think here's the other part, bro.
Is that we in this country are so damn polarized now that I wonder if it's even worth the conversation and worth the money to have these surveys done to figure out why this is happening.
Because as you just said, just reach in your backpack.
You're going to touch about 35 different reasons why you joined Antifa.
Just on this particular day, it happened to be something that happened to you in the military.
Right.
So, maybe part of that discussion is that I don't care why you joined.
I don't care what happened to make you join, especially if you at one point in your life stood in front of another man or woman and raised your right hand and took an oath to this country, you know.
You know right from wrong.
And unfortunately, there are times and places and things that happen while you are in your service that aren't great.
You know, like the ladies who are getting raped.
And it's not just ladies, by the way.
Men are getting sexually assaulted almost at the same clip as ladies are, apparently.
That was interesting.
Um, but I don't, I don't, I guess I can't understand or can't get down with the idea that at any time it's acceptable to do this.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I know we talk about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment and the Second Amendment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We talk about it.
People talk about it all day, every day.
But in my mind...
When you are finished with your last duty day, whether you retire or it's the last day of your contract and you ETS and you get out, in my mind, that doesn't necessarily mean that your allegiance and the oath that you took is now null and void.
So, that to me makes these activities somewhat treasonous.
Legally?
No, I don't think it does.
Because I think once you're out, you're free to do whatever you want.
You can talk shit about the president if you want.
You can do this.
You can do that.
You can do the other thing.
No big deal.
But one of the biggest things that the military taught me...
To carry on as a veteran, as a man, was to have some integrity and do the right thing when nobody's looking.
And I would say that just because our time, Jason, in uniform is over, it doesn't mean that we still shouldn't be defending this land.
That we shouldn't still Take the oath that we took to defend our effing homes seriously.
And the homes of our neighbors and our friends and our family, the people that we love.
I think we should still be doing all that.
Agreed.
And so, I don't know that there's any good justification for joining some group or some organization that That has this idea that they want to take down America.
Right?
No, you can't.
Well, and of course, you know, things change.
I mean, it goes back to when you asked me probably a year ago, you know, would I join the military again right now?
And I think my answer shocked you.
Right?
You said no.
I said no.
I probably wouldn't.
You know, but I'm not saying that I have any regrets.
I have no issue with who I am now.
I love being an American every day.
We have the opportunity to be pissed off, to be pissed off.
Like, every opportunity.
The freedoms that come along with it, I would never give that up.
There are certain things now that have changed for me in my life that, you know, certainly would be a much harder question to answer, but I still think I would tend towards no.
But that doesn't change anything in who I am.
It doesn't mean because I just don't want to go put on a uniform right now that I think anything less of the country that we live in.
I think everything is messed up.
You know, I think there's a lot of things that could be a lot better.
I think there could be less division politically.
That still doesn't change the ideals.
You know, when you put your left hand on that Bible and you raised your right hand.
And, you know, interestingly enough, I was sworn in by my own father, bro.
Yeah, that's right.
I remember you told me that story.
That's awesome.
And it was cool.
I didn't know.
There wasn't anything I understood about the military at that time.
I knew it was a really neat opportunity, like a great experience for he and I to share.
But from that moment forward, it wasn't just the pride in America, but it was the pride in my last name.
You know, I wasn't going to let this last name be shit on.
I wasn't going to let this country be shit on.
I wasn't going to let me be shit on.
And so, you know, carrying that forward, would I ever bring myself into a situation where I'd be doing this other nonsense?
Absolutely not.
None of that changes.
Yeah, and you know, I often come back to this idea That my dad talks about all the time, about not forgetting where you came from.
And I just feel like if I were to, for whatever reason, decide to join one of these groups and go to these events and start running amok all over whatever city it's in, I feel like I would be doing my family name and my family a huge disservice.
And I'd be a huge disappointment to the idea of my family and who I am and the legacy that I try every day to build.
Even if it's just a little tiny bit every day.
Because this was the life that I chose in 2001, 2002, whatever the hell year it was that I chose to do this.
It's like being a hypocrite.
I will defend this land against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
And now because I had some bad experiences, well, screw that.
Just kidding.
I didn't mean it.
I don't think that that's acceptable.
Not by any means at all.
You have beliefs, though, in some of this stuff.
You know, conspiracy theories.
I don't think that stuff is crazy.
But becoming a part of an active group that's out doing things that are disruptive.
We talked about this earlier in the week on Disfrontal.
That is a very serious thing.
Why would you want to be a part of that?
You're taking all these freedoms and opportunities that you fought for people to have because you were the 1%.
You were the 1% willing to put on the uniform and go do the job.
And now you're going to be the same person being the 1% to make normal life more difficult.
Absolutely.
Super hard, man.
And I just don't understand it.
I don't get it.
I just have a hard time processing how people can...
End up there.
When you started all the way over here, like the things that made you prideful enough to put on a uniform that had your name on it and your country and wear that flag on your shoulder, that's a pretty patriotic act, I would say.
Well, I can't think of one more patriotic.
Can you?
No.
It's the upper echelon.
That's the big show.
That's it.
So how do we go from that?
Something compelled you to do it.
Because long gone are the days of...
Hey, listen here, Mr.
Ose.
Either you're going to serve in the United States Army for four years or you're going to go to prison for four years.
What would you like to do?
Did you develop a little bit of a Texas draw there?
Well, that was what they did down south, wasn't it?
Yeah, I think it was widely spread across the country.
I don't know.
Well, they had Texas judges up here in Minnesota, too.
Apparently they did.
That was probably the worst draw I've ever heard, by the way.
Well, I'm not from Texas.
Clearly.
But no, yeah, you don't have that.
We have an all-volunteer militia.
It's probably one of the great designators.
A certain part of me says, I think there should be some type of mandatory service, but maybe it's a civil service, but I digress.
Another show.
But it's an all-volunteer military, period.
We have the highest educated military that we've ever had when it comes to secondary education beyond high school.
We've never had a military that's smart.
There are a lot of great things that do occur, that have occurred, you know, since we went to a volunteer force.
But yeah, very few people were given that opportunity.
Certainly guys at ISA, I never had any of those.
We had a couple of Vietnam vets on my first deployment that served with a lot of people that were in that position.
But I never knew one.
I knew one of them had joined to get teeth, but that was as close as I got.
Well, but that's a good point, bro, because even some of those guys, those Vietnam guys, we had two of them when we deployed to Iraq.
I remember Staff Sergeant Dove.
He had been in the United States Army since the beginning of time and only made E6. Right?
And if you ask him, Staff Sergeant Dove, how come you're only E6? You've been in for 34 years.
Never wanted to go higher.
Roger that.
He's just an old grunt.
And he deployed to Iraq with us.
But you know what, Jason?
He was drafted.
He was drafted and as he told the story, check this out, you'll find this funny.
After I ate the big IED and got blown up and they took me off the road for a few weeks while my brain recovered or whatever the hell they said was going on, I got to go sit with Sergeant Dove for a week and a half In lawn chairs at, guess where?
The burn pit.
And we sat on the edge of the burn pit and watched the locals climb in and out of that thing, bringing stuff in to burn.
With no masks, they weren't wearing shirts, none of that stuff.
Anyway, and he would tell me these stories about how he got drafted and his brother and his mother begged him to go to Canada to dodge the draft.
And he was pissed about it.
He didn't want to go.
Even he said, he goes, I had a lot of good things going on.
He played baseball.
He had just met some girl or whatever.
He goes, the last place I wanted to go was Vietnam.
I hated the United States government for picking me to go there.
And 30-something years later, he's sitting in Iraq, still wearing a uniform.
Still doing the green.
Yeah, right?
And so if anybody...
If anybody is going to be forgiven for joining an extremist movement, which nobody is because there's no excuse, but if anybody has anything close to a valid excuse, I think it would be those guys who got uprooted from their whole lives and sent to Vietnam against their will.
But some of them stayed for 30, 40 years.
Well, it changed their entire trajectory.
You know, that's one of the things that people don't know about deployments.
It changes your entire life plan, for the good or for the bad.
It doesn't matter, right?
Because it's not our plan anyway.
We're just taking the steps.
But yeah, there's that cat.
Hey, Sergeant Dove, if you're out there listening, that's pretty fantastic.
Sergeant Dove has passed.
He's glad.
God bless him.
But he taught us a lot, us young soldiers.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
He owned a little farm out in, like, western Minnesota in the middle of nowhere.
Okay, so he got to be in the guard and farm?
Yeah, he was a weekend warrior.
You know why this guy was in for 34 years.
He had it by the seeds.
What do you mean?
So this guy could be in the guard.
He could still serve his country.
He could go back to his farm, serve his community by making food, by growing things, by doing things.
Like, that guy had it all.
I have to assume, did he have a family?
Yeah, I think he had like three or four kids.
I mean, he was married when he passed.
They had been together for years.
He hit the trifecta.
I would challenge this RAND Corporation, if you're going to piss any more money away doing these studies and surveys, see what people are doing in their real life that drives them into these extremist organizations.
See how everything else has contributed to them making that leap or that jump into what you deem extremist activities and discuss that.
Because I sure as shit would believe that there's going to be way more life experience that causes those changes than it is going to be an issue or an instance in the military.
Period.
Or you're going to find the same or similar life experiences outside of the military that these veterans had also.
And I think that's a great idea.
Why don't you go...
I watched some video earlier today that said, well, we embedded ourselves with the Proud Boys and QAnon and Antifa just to kind of get a feel about what they were about and who they were.
Well, ask those dudes and those ladies why they joined.
How did you end up here?
So they had the opportunity.
So they weren't even just on the veteran side trying to get this article and this information.
But they were actually in the organizations.
This wasn't the Rand, it was a completely different, it was a MSNBC thing that I had seen in some documentarian was making, it was like four weeks ago.
The documentary that, yeah, from a little while ago.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
So, anyway, but we've went about 19 minutes over on time, so we're going to take a quick break.
We'll be right back with you.
Stick with us.
Hey folks, welcome back here to the second short half of the show.
As usual, I did not do a good job at keeping watch of the clock.
We went like 19 and a half minutes over time.
So let's get on down the road.
Jason, my question to you is this.
Organizations like the Proud Boys or Antifa or Q or whatever you want to insert group here...
Do you think that it's possible that they are taking attention and resources or whatever away from issues and things that need attention and just causing a problem?
Or do you think that they are actively bringing attention to things that really do need attention and need to be solved?
And it's now on our government to either listen and do something about it or have a conversation or whatever the case may be.
So I guess the question is, are they doing more harm than good or vice versa?
Well, that's an easy one.
Well, just your opinion.
Well, in my opinion, it's clear if you get this many people fired up about a thing, there's certainly some feelings of reasons.
I think Antifa and Proud Boys are kind of like the left and right at that threshold.
And then, of course, the black and white supremacy movements are kind of like the yin and yang on that level.
And then kind of get to, like, the QAnon or the Great Replacement Theory.
And I think I certainly empathize with that position more because you look at the shit that we deal with right now, you know, with the stressors that are going on, with the absurdities and the oddities, right?
Like, I don't carry your feelings on the 2020 election, but I'm going to tell you this.
Weird things happened that have never happened before, right?
Mm-hmm.
So, regardless of whatever side that you're on, if you can't acknowledge that there were oddities or absurdities, there's a problem.
You know, at what?
The TCF Bank Center?
They cardboarded the windows while they were throwing people out.
That's a problem.
Random water mains broke, you know, somewhere in Atlanta or something, right?
Oddity never happened before.
You had people doing mail-in voting for the first time.
A lot of other different things happened that were completely counter to anything that we had known.
You saw voting spikes, and I'm just going to use a 2020 election as a snapshot to discuss.
Because I think that's something that, you know, either polarizes people one way or the other.
And if you have those feelings to get around people to discuss the things, your feelings about it, you know, and the QAnon movement or whatever that consortium of people, you know, where that whole thing is, I would be lying if I said I didn't see some of those come across on iFunny.
And they, you know, the Q drops that make you...
Ask the question, you know, is all this foolishness that I saw, was this by design or was this just an honest occurrence?
Right?
Like we've seen enough oddity in the last four years to start to question or have a need to know a reason why.
If your kid is continually doing something and then all of a sudden there's a distinct change in their behavior or their patterning, you're going to ask your son or daughter what happened, right?
Yep.
What's going on?
As a society, we look for those oddities.
And when we see them, when you're told by people that this was not an oddity, this is a normality.
Well, no, it's not.
It's never happened before.
I've been around for...
You know, certain people have been around for 50 years voting.
Well, that had never occurred.
You know, none of this stuff had ever happened.
So you have to start asking yourself, is what happened real?
If it was real, great.
Let's validate it.
But when people don't want to take the time to speak truth to honest situations, then now it puts another question in mind.
So when people start to look for something rational in something that's irrational, they're going to end up in groups looking for normalcy.
Any of these groups, maybe they have extremist views in some way, shape, or form, but the ones that are just groups with shared thoughts and philosophy, you're trying to find something that makes sense in a world that seemingly makes less sense every stinking day.
You know, you fight inflation.
Let's just say, you know, and we talked about it quickly offline that, you know, if either you or I were in a situation where we lived by ourselves on a fixed income, like a lot of Americans do.
A lot of Americans don't have extra money.
Like we're all, I mean, I don't have extra money, but I have the ability to go out and earn more if I needed to.
You know, I'll go get that third or fourth job flipping burgers if I have to.
But there are a lot of people that aren't that fortunate.
And so when these inflationary issues are occurring and they're having to start to make very hard cuts, can you not have empathy for that person who's looking for some rationality in their shared experiences?
Absolutely not!
I'm not saying that any of these are great or wrong, but it turns out half of this stuff tends to be true more often than not.
Again, that Alex Jones was right, Jar, that keeps filling up.
And it's not just the frogs being gay.
And so...
You know what I mean?
I mean, it's all there.
You keep talking about these things, and they want to label them as extremism or these other things.
But quite frankly, when the politicians fail and cannot keep normal things occurring, everybody's going to have their absolute right to be able to go and try to rationalize it.
Like, you can't tell me that the border wasn't more secure four years ago than it is now.
Period.
You're not gonna be able to lie with data.
You're not gonna be able to lie with statistics.
That's why they have to blame it on something.
So then they blame it on the fact that previous administration didn't do enough to somehow cover it, but somehow it worked underneath them, but I digress.
So if somebody's gonna sit there and be like, hey man, this widget worked all this time, and then they removed the widget, Why are you bringing people in?
Why does it feel like there's a welcoming party down at the southern border to get folks here?
For what reason?
Are they going to take over the finite amount of jobs that I have?
Do I have to be worried about my security there?
Do I have to be worried about my security finance?
Excuse me.
My personal security?
You know, do I need to be worried about my financial security?
Because now I know that the funds that I pay into my tax dollars are being spread over more people.
Like, they keep printing the press, but I'm not paying, you know, but we're already taxed at the brink.
I think most Americans can agree that our taxes are about as high as they need to be.
They need to be smart about the money, but you see the money continually being spent, and then you see your dollar going less and less.
And so, you and I had to start cutting things out.
You know, you're going to remove those things that bring us excitement or joy.
You're going to lose your bike.
I'm going to lose my mini bike.
And that's a travesty.
Right?
That cannot happen.
Nine and a half miles an hour, dude.
I get in the wind.
But in all seriousness, now you start to remove the things that give people happiness and their ability to live a fulfilled life where they can do something.
And they're going to look for a reason.
And if your governance can't give you that reason, You're going to look for it somewhere else, you know, and try to rationalize that loss, you know?
So, again, I don't disagree with a lot of the things being said.
I don't agree with a lot of the things being said, but I can understand how somewhere in all of this, there's a bit of truth to everything.
And so, you've learned, you know, I learned it in school.
You know, I see with my eyes and I hear with my ears.
And if I hear something that doesn't add up, I have to question it.
That's why I have to use this.
And if I see something that doesn't add up to what I'm being told, I have to use this.
And so, if nobody's gonna give me that answer on how to get there, I'm gonna tend to find it myself.
Well, and so part of all of that is that when you were talking about having to make choices about what to cut, right?
Well, you start taking those things that bring you joy and happiness away.
That creates idle minds.
If I go to work every day and I get off work and I can't afford to get on my bike and go for a ride and grab dinner or a beer or something or I can't go out with the boys or I can't go to dinner with my wife or we can't go on a vacation or to the movies or whatever the case may be and we gotta sit at home all the time And this coming from a guy that I don't mind sitting at home.
I'm comfortable at home.
I love our home.
I'm cool with it.
But after a certain amount of time, when your mind becomes idle, that's when trouble happens, right?
Because people are going to find something to do.
And I'll challenge you this.
You're cool about it because you have a choice.
If you didn't have a choice, let's just say, hypothetically, Richard Leonard is under proverbial house arrest, you're going to hate that house.
Yeah, you're probably right.
You know, and so that's, you know, again, I'm not saying people are under house arrest or making that jump, but I'm saying if you can't go anywhere because you can't afford it, it may as well be house arrest.
Yeah, I mean, it's not a whole lot different.
You're right.
Oh.
And so maybe, maybe part of what this whole movement is with these different groups, maybe part of the reason why they've been labeled the way they've been labeled is because some of,
whether it be a small part, large part, or everything, I'm sure it's not everything, but maybe there is some truth about Maybe there's some truth to the things that they stand up on the mountaintop and scream about.
It happened with Donald Trump.
He came down that escalator and it seemed like before he got to the bottom they were already trying to put him in jail and impeach him.
He wasn't even in the goddang election yet.
Right.
And I think it was because they knew.
They knew that he knows a lot of stuff.
They knew that, and I don't know him personally, of course, but he seems to be a pretty smart guy.
Or at least he's got a lot of smart people around him.
Or both.
Yeah.
And so that's when all of this stuff started really kicking off, right?
And everyone, this Trump derangement syndrome that they talk about started to become prevalent everywhere.
But it started in the halls of Congress and Senate.
So maybe he's not wrong.
Maybe the stuff that comes out of his mouth is not necessarily a lie.
Maybe there's some truth to it.
Sure seems like it.
And so, like, that's never part of the conversation.
But maybe that's what the people like the Proud Boys and Antifa or whatever, maybe that's the message they're trying to get across.
However, I think that if that's the message they're trying to get across, they're not going to be, the ears of the people they're trying to get their message to are closed because of their approach.
Right.
Well, everybody thought Noah was crazy until it started raining.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
And he was chilling with the giraffes, man.
Hey, man.
What is that other meme?
Sometimes you have to fight like the third monkey getting on the ark?
You don't want to be the third monkey in that situation.
You don't want to be the third anything in that situation.
Yeah, you better know how to fight.
But there it sits, and I think that's a great point that you bring up, is its context.
Its palatability.
Its actions.
Because as soon as there are actions, of course, now you're stuck dealing with the consequence of those actions.
I don't know.
I've never heard of Q doing anything.
Right?
Me neither.
I've heard them be blamed for things, but I've never heard them be confirmed as...
Get blamed for saying things, right?
Yep.
Things that are, you know, First Amendment protected.
You know, but there's other groups that are thrown in there that have actually done physical things.
And so, yeah, now that it's, you know, no judge or jury here, quite frankly, I love the fact that we're in America and you can go do this, you know, have that opportunity.
You know, exercising your freedom the way that you see fit.
That's the beautiful part.
You and I have been in places in the world where you don't get that chance.
Absolutely.
You know, where if you're a woman, you can't drive.
You know, when you're young, you don't get to make choices at all.
Not that our kids need to make more choices anymore, because apparently our kids will make the bad choices too.
But I digress.
It's a...
It's an absurdity to think that when you're painting veterans who are extremists, and again, I even have to throw the finger quotes on extremists, because some of this doesn't seem that extreme.
Some of it is extreme.
And again, it's always in the eye of the beholder.
But...
Again, painting the extremist name over veterans and then trying to link it back to military service to me is a stretch.
There's far too many things that impact our day-to-day life.
Like, I know I've got problems and They're typically not because of my trauma from the military.
So, suck it up and drive on.
Well, I'm here to, and I want to say those are great final thoughts.
Thank you for that.
And number two, I can confirm that Jason has problems.
We all do, by the way.
But we need to wind up today's conversation, and I think that this is it right here.
We went around the block to go across the street, and here's going across the street.
At the end of the day, there are a lot of things that cause people to join groups and say things and do things that aren't necessarily the best way to get their point across.
Such as some of these groups.
Now, that doesn't mean that they're necessarily 100% wrong.
I believe that some of what they say has some truth to it.
How much?
I don't know.
What pisses me off about this type of news coverage is that now we're painting veterans in this kind of light.
The headline didn't read, 21 veterans polled and this was their experience.
The headline read, veterans, as a blanket statement.
And in a time when we're so polarized and all this stuff is happening, and there are people and organizations out here that are trying to bridge this gap between us and them.
The culture of veterans, the warrior culture, and the civilian culture, so that we can meld together and have some understanding.
Putting things out like this, when you only interview 21 people, and one-third of them had a bad experience, and they claim it's from their military experience is why they joined said groups, that doesn't do any favors for the hundreds of thousands of veterans, millions of veterans that are out here every day That are doing what they need to do to try to get by.
Whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.
You're not helping the cause.
And I wish that people would think about that.
But, of course, we can't control it.
All we can do is continue to sit here in front of these cameras and bring you the information as we see it and just pound it home.
And so that's what we're going to continue to do.
So for now, we're going to sign off.
Jason, thank you for your time today.
I really appreciate it.
And from everybody here at the show, we want to wish you a happy Sunday, and we will see you next week.
Take care of yourselves and take care of each other.
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