WEBVTT - Let's Take A Break With Ben Shapiro's Terrible Book 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:05.640 Hello, America. I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards, 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:09.039 a podcast about terrible people. And just the other day 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.480 I was doing, you know, normal things for a leftist, 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:18.480 anarchist democratt, mainly namely masturbating to slash fiction about Barack 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.919 Obama and Joseph Stalin, my two heroes, when I came 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.439 across a book, a book that reminded me of all 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.920 of the wonderful beauty of conservatism and all of the 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:33.800 evils of my morally bankrupt liberal ideology. And today we're 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.480 going to read another section from that book, Ben Shapiro's 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.400 True Allegiance. Katie and Cody, why don't you come onto 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:42.960 the stage and take a bow? Hello? Hello, thank you, 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:45.640 thank you so much. Oh it's too much, too much, 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:49.159 thank you, thank you, thank you. You guys do it. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:54.760 We do it for you. Guplode from Joy Hi, more 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:59.680 praise please, more praise? Oh guy? Okay, first question for 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:04.200 the annal, who do you think is the bottom Obama 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:11.320 or Stalin um Obama? Obama? Obama? You think so? Huh, 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:15.160 I've I've experienced your episode. Yeah. This is going to 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:18.440 be the new Stalin Trotsky Debate, and it's about whether 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:23.040 or not Stalin or Obama's a bottom. You haven't yet, 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.560 so maybe there's more information. Well, yeah, I have yet. 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:27.800 I've yet to learn about his habits, but I could 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:32.440 see that I think Obama's you know, yeah, I do 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.440 think that Biden or that not Biden Stalin. Sorry, they're 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.240 both such similar people. I think that Stalin is probably 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.320 has the versatility to be a switch for sure. Yeah, 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:44.000 who's to say, to be a fly on the wall 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.560 of that fan fick. I mean, I have some good 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:56.280 news about the way fan fiction works, Katie. I'm very 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:00.080 excited to be back. Um. I was not able to 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:06.560 attend the last chapters. Yeah that day, Yeah, yeah, you 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.160 know you missed. Ben Shapiro still has not learned how 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:16.959 to write a single sentence. Yeah, as far as I know. Yeah, 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.720 to be fair, he got a little sleepy. M Yeah, 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.519 maybe a sleepy on the third day when four days 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:26.760 to write this. Yeah, and on the fourth day he 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.720 got sleepy. Yeah. You know, we had a we had 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.840 a couple of different things in there, um, including President 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:37.480 Mark Prescott, who's who's white? Obama getting to give his 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.040 equivalent of the speech. George Bush gave it ground zero, 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.440 which is bad when a Democrat does it. But it 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:47.280 was good that George Bush did it. Um, simple maths 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:49.520 and yeah, and actually we're going to start again with 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.320 another President Prescott chapter as we as we turned into 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:56.920 six of the way through True Allegiance. So that's the 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.320 only thing I really missed was that the president gave 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:04.840 a speech. No, I mean, the black gangster character got 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.720 angry that the Al Sharpton character didn't want to kill 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.080 cops as much, so he started a secret plan to 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:17.399 replace all of the cops with gangsters. Uh, cops aren't 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:24.000 already gangsters. Change changing the force that move. Oh and 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:28.639 Brett Hawthorne did a did what what what's the term 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.840 when you you judge people based on their racest criminals? Um? 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.680 Oh yeah, racial profiling. And then it didn't help. And 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.200 but the point was still that it's good to do. Yeah, 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:42.560 didn't do what it was supposed to do. Um, and 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:46.960 learned nothing. He learned. Yeah, bit is even bad at 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:51.320 writing propaganda. Unbelievable, wrote a case against it. Still didn't 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:53.840 still see what he's doing. Yeah, because he kind of 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.320 had the people who Bret Hawthorne was ordering to do 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.320 racial profiling be like this is bad because it's racial profiling, 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.960 and then the racial profiling doesn't work and it turns 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:05.960 out they were right. But you're not supposed to walk 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.920 away from the book thinking that it was a good 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:11.520 it was a good try. We're glad he did it 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:15.800 because we need to keep doing it, alright, alrightn we 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.080 love we love your commas. So, almost two thirds of 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.720 the way into the book, here's President Prescott's chapter New 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:27.000 York City, featuring a lot of other characters. Yeah, you 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.240 could switch forward in time thirty what we're starting there, 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.560 We'll see where we land. Ben knows that the key 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.640 to any like, really readable piece of fiction is that 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.200 the reader never have any sense of grounding or understanding 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:45.000 of where he is, much like yeah, yeah, yeah, this 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.760 is this is I would describe Ben Shapiro as most 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.040 like this true allegiance is most similar to, for example, 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:58.560 the Dubliners. It's just like the Dubliners. That's surely that's 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:04.680 what he's going for, really nailing the just this consistent inconsistency. Yeah, 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:07.360 I do. Now, thinking about Ben Shapiro trying to write 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.320 James Joyce, I'm imagining Ben Shapiro writing about a character 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.719 masturbating through a hole in his pocket and like getting 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:23.440 stuck up, I'm not being able to write. Comes to uh, 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:30.320 just a book full of just like the sea wordword. Okay, 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.040 so the first chapter that we're going to read today 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.960 is Ellen, who remember is Ben Shapiro's wife, um, but 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.440 actually is Brett Hawthorne's wife, um. And he works for 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:45.240 Governor Bubba Davis, who is basically George Bush. I think 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.120 that's what Ben's going for. Yeah, he's bushy in. He's 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.839 he's bushy in and a perfectly rendered Texan been really 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:53.799 has spent a lot of time in my home state. 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.960 I can tell because he uses the classic Texan phrase 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:04.360 Horne swaggled all. The Governor Davis's refusal to send the 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.400 National Guard to New York sparked a firestorm across the nation. 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.160 He cited precedent, hadn't The governor of California refused a 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.920 federal request to place National Guard troops on the border, 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.040 but in the aftermath of the bridge attack, he didn't 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.840 get much sympathy. Everyone knows that Texas thinks of itself 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.080 as its own little country. Shouted one MSNBC commentator into 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:27.240 the camera. Well that this was a man and not 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:32.560 a woman. Because this is how, this is how Ben 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.200 yet has to be a man because he didn't write screeching, 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:39.120 and it has to be a white man because he 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.360 absolutely would have told us if it was a black man. 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.880 So here's Ben Shapiro, who clearly knows how people talk 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.400 on NBC, describing what NBC would say. Everyone knows that 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.839 Texas thinks of itself as its own little country, but 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.839 this time their hick governor has shown himself to be 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.760 deeply unpatriotic. You don't get to be a star in 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:01.480 the lag of the United States and then go a 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.559 while when your country needs you, which is like, first, 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:11.960 actually a good point. Second, remember when a literal fascist 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:16.440 won the presidency and every mainstream news outlet couldn't wait 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:18.400 to go hang on at waffle houses and talk to 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.000 Trump voters, uh, and lecture liberals about being in a bubble. 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.520 Unfortunately still and still do every every day everything. But no, 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:32.920 MSNBC gets on and calls him a hick governor. Right, yeah, 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.360 he's getting it right. So yeah, Heroically, Governor Davis refuses 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:39.120 to send in the National Guard to help with a 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.560 mass casualty event that's killed thousands of Americans. Uh, and 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.840 the media lambasts him for it. The media ran with 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.160 the story a president calling for love and unity and 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.600 a southern secessionist governor looking like George Wallace. Never mind 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:53.440 that Davis that's stood with the marchers of the Civil 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.160 rights era. He now stood on the side of the 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.520 old South. The media through collade, which I love. So 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.640 to make this guy, to make this guy a good guy, 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.280 been just like has to invent that he marched with 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.480 civil rights marchers, which is like the easiest way to 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.520 get around, Like, I don't want people to think this 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.960 guy clearly being a bigot is a bigot. I'll just 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:18.360 say that he stood with Martin Luther King. Uh. It's 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:23.280 it's very funny. He's doing a good job und character, 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.520 you see well, and it's it's also just an example 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.280 of like how to not write a good book. Um, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.640 because if you're writing a good book, you should always 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.559 be scared of giving yourself an easy answer. So, like, 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.280 if you're trying to make this character into clearly a good, 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.640 morally upright guy, your best way to end, Like you 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:43.960 just kind of off handedly mentioned that he marched with 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.120 civil rights marchers. That's the laziest way to make him 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.720 into a good person because again it's this whole show 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.439 like tell, don't show thing that Ben has going on, 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.440 because yeah, because the governor's actually being evil here, so 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.560 Ben just says, but in the past he did really 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:01.680 good thing, So what he's doing now is good because 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:06.960 Martin Luther King like, it's that's what a good thing is. 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.480 It would be considered unbelievably lazy if it wasn't the 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.679 person that we're talking about. It's very believably lazy. Yes, 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.360 it's believably lazy. Again, if you wanted to make this 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.000 more of an interesting book, have him actually have a 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.520 point and be in the right and the federal government 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:24.680 be wrong, but also have the governor be a guy 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.640 with a problematic past to his battling with that and 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.800 who like faces additional opposition because of bad things he's 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.839 done in the past that maybe like gives the bad 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:36.640 guys more like room to work with or something like, 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:40.280 make it an interesting fucking story. He saved a bus 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.200 full of nuns and school children in the past. We 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.480 don't need to see that way earlier, way earlier, No, 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.080 but that way, we don't have to waste words on it. 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.040 We can just tell you it's like how. It's like 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.600 how When they made the action movie Classic die Hard. Uh, 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.160 they mentioned that John McClain had stood with the civil 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:00.880 rights movements, that people would like him rather than painting 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.520 him as a deadbeat husband and then making him likable 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:05.440 through the things that he suffered and went through and 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.640 sacrifices he made throughout the movie. You know, I'm gonna 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:14.319 watch die Hard tonight. It's good sounds like good storytelling. 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.600 It's a Thanksgiving movie. It's a Christmas movie, a Thanksgiving movie. 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.319 Die Hard two is an Easter movie. Die Hard two 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.360 is an Easter movie. Is it's it's covered in snow 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:33.000 the whole time. It's another Christmas movie. Yeah. The President 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:38.480 of the United States. Uh okay, so um. Bubba Davis 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:44.120 turns to ubba civil rights hero basically Martin Luther King Jr. 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:48.440 Bubba Davis turns to Ellen ben Shapiro's wife and asks 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.920 her to be like the public face of his resistance 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:55.120 to the federal government, and she refuses because the President 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.040 of the United States, she told Davis, had brought her 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.319 husband home in one piece. He made mistakes. She knew 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.240 he'd exile her husband based on lies, separated them for years. 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:04.800 Slash the military, undermine the mission, she thought. But in 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:06.600 the end, he brought Brett home and that was all 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:10.160 that mattered to her, Which is, you know, actually a 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.160 vaguely reasonable step for a character to take in this book. 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.600 That's like a human being, Like, yeah, no, on that sentence, 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.960 you know what been good on you? That was a 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:27.080 believable single paragraph Was it a single paragraph sentence? Yeah, okay, 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.280 let's see here. Yeah, he'd exiled her husband based on lies. 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.840 Comma separated them for years. Comma slash the military, comma 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:35.600 undermine the mission, comma. She thought. Yeah, it's not a 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:39.040 great sentence. The sentence structure isn't good, but the paragraph 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.880 covers useful emotional Yeah, absolutely, it's it's it was an 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.840 attempt um And just because he kept the sentence going 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.040 a little longer, that's fine. Yeah, okay, Bubba says. When 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.680 she refuses, then I need you on the border. Somebody 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:54.200 has to head up this outfit, and if I go 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.000 down there, they'll accuse me of outright insurrection. You're competent, 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.120 your husband is a well known military figure, and well 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.160 damn it, you're a woman, and those sexists and the 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:05.760 press won't labor a woman an insurrectionist. Okay, so he 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.920 gives his I guess press secretary control of the military 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.439 forces he's placing on the border because as a woman, 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.880 the press won't accused her of leading an insurrection. So 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.120 which end of that is sexist? Is my question? The 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:26.240 media been uh landing on their great question. Um, I 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.200 think the media sexist because they won't call her an 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:34.000 insurrectionist when she starts leading an insurrection. Yeah, the media, 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:38.400 you know, we'll see maybe you know. Yeah, Okay, So 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:42.040 that in the next paragraph she's been there for a week. Um, 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:43.920 so I guess all of this was just going back 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:47.160 in time to ca. So this is so every time. 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:49.360 It's like, by the way, this is a year later. 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:54.760 And she had to admit that the border felt different. 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.760 It felt safe for the first time ever. Military vehicles 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.000 patrolled the Texas side of the river, with checkpoints set 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.679 up to funnel visitors and workers there after checking identification. Soldiers, 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.280 many speaking Spanish, spoke with the locals, helping to oh 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.640 my god, what a sentence. Soldiers Comma, many speaking Spanish. 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:12.440 Commas spoke with the locals, Comma helping to direct them 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:18.880 to the local ranches. Yeah, spoke with them to help 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.440 them with. Yeah, I mean saying simple adjustments to get 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.600 rid of all those commas. Yeah, it's it's it's just editor. 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:28.760 And also, I don't know if you ever spend a 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:30.960 lot of time and places where there's tons of military 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.920 vehicles and soldiers manning checkpoints, I can say from experience 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:41.120 in multiple countries, you don't feel very safe. Tons of 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.520 soldiers handling basic travel needs makes me feel like I'm 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:46.840 in a dangerous place, because every place I've been like 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:52.880 that has been dangerous, interesting, interesting feeling. Yeah. Also spent 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.079 a lot of time on the Texas border, and definitely 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.400 a lot of terrible things do happen on chunks of 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.320 the US Mexican border. It's a long border. Most of 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:05.760 it's pretty empty, you know. Uh. Yeah. She'd been there 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:07.760 for a week and there hadn't been any dead kids 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.319 in the river. Every so often, a black helicopter had 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.320 buzzed the troops on the American side of the border. 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:14.600 Ellen thought it might be members of the same drug 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.120 cartel that had killed Vivian. She even thought that she'd 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.560 seen one of the men wearing a bandana over his face. 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.520 She told the generals of the guard that she didn't 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.080 want to see any fire at the helicopters unless fired upon. 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.520 Things were bad enough without starting a war. In the 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.640 last few days, yes, she needed to tell the military 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:34.680 not to shoot random helicopters out of the sky. In 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.480 the last few days, the helicopters had buzzed closer and closer, 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.920 probing frauding American response. The Americans merely observed the guard 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.480 had no intelligence capacities. Every soldier I know who's worked 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:46.880 with guardsmen would agree with that statement, and fairness to Ben. 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.960 The Feds hadn't been particularly responsive since Davis's big announcement, 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.680 but Ellen had some private investigators do some digging. What 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.600 they found shocked her. The city of Warez, they said, 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:58.960 was won by the Warez Cartel, one of the most 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.000 dangerous criminal enter prices on the planet. It's leadership and 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.320 passed down through the Careo Fuintes brothers, who had turned Okay, 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:10.640 So he starts talking about cartel's cartel's cartels. Uh okay, 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:13.760 And now he's just quoting two thousand six Guardian article 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:19.840 about crimes of the wires cartels. Yeah, we've got Ben 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:23.880 Shapiro writing a Daily Wire article about the cartels for 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:27.520 his website. Alright, No, he actually cites the two thousand 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.600 six article from the UK Guardian and wait a second, Yeah, 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:33.440 so what fucking world are we in? Yeah, that's a 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.920 great question. The timeline in this is not super clear 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.560 because Obama was also president in the past. Okay, I 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.440 thought that they did find weapons of mass destruction. They did. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.880 How does this fucking Guardian article from our world still 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:51.840 fucking exists. Well, I mean, you know, they found the 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.880 w m D. Is in the Middle East, there's still cartels. 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.800 I guess Middle Eastern history is completely different in Ben's world, 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:04.240 but everything is the same up until two thousand sixteen ish. Yeah, 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:10.800 I don't care anymore. Yeah, uh yeah, the presence of 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.120 American troops on the board. So basically she goes into 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.720 how like it had been so dangerous. She cites a 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:17.800 bunch of horrible things cartels did in Wirez, and then 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:19.640 points out that since all the soldiers were now on 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:21.960 the border, all of the violence in Wirez had stopped, 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:27.240 So it was it was that simple tools. Some people 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.680 might note that the Mexican military is basically armed identically 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:34.080 to the United States military and has not succeeded in 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.400 any way, shape or form with crushing the cartels who 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.440 are similarly armed. In a lot of cases, people might 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:45.680 note that some people wouldn't be Ben Shapiro. Why would Yeah. 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.840 So Ellen's job is to keep the peace on the border. Uh, 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.160 she'd have to do better. She knew one incident gone 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.960 wrong could end Davis's dreams of a safe Texas. So, 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:57.480 I guess everything's working great on the border because the 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:02.280 army is there. Um, it's good. Yeah. So we have 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.480 a little line break and then we're I guess in 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.159 the have advanced an indeterminate amount of time in the future. 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:14.600 It's still so far that could change any second. We 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.240 don't know. Ellen's cell phone rang New York number. She 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:22.200 picked up. Hey, sweetheart, Brett's rich baritone rumbled through the phone. 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:28.680 Give me, give me a break. No, I can't wait 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.320 to hear Ben Shapiro write about these two love birds. Birds. 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.160 I'm sorry, but we are. We are into the book. 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:46.560 Need this description rich? Actually, I think you do, Hey sweetheart, 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:50.159 says Brett's rich baritone. Hey babe, she said, miss you. 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:55.320 His voice sounded thick over the phone. Almost hear already 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.080 know you said it. Okay, sorry, okay, it's fine, Just 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.760 a few days ago. They've been so close to re nighting. Now, 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.119 with commercial air travel shut down in the crisis in 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.399 New York, it could be weeks, they both knew. But 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.199 this was something new too. Bret never talked like this 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.119 since the rescue from a Bret hadn't been himself. He 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:16.639 never called her sweetheart called. She could imagine why, and 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.040 she could imagine his face. She longed to reach out 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.600 and touch it. Miss you two. How's Bill? He's hanging 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.119 in there? Another pause? Are you okay? Bill? By the way, 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:27.520 is their friend whose wife and young daughter were just killed. 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.440 That's what they spare for Bill. How's Bill? He's fine. 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.399 In fairness to Ben, the way he wrote, Bill, he 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.560 clearly was not broken up over the death of his 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:42.199 wife and child. That is true. He's doing He's doing great. 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:47.480 He's right back to work. Are you okay? Yes, that's 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.320 a no, he laughed. So did she. Davis made a 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.040 mistake not sending the troops. You know, I know, she answered, 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.760 And I have a feeling something's coming here, something bad. 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.560 I'm getting the same feeling. It's not over. Is it 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:01.360 a long pause? No, I don't think it is. Someone 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.199 knocked on the door. To Ellen's office. I gotta run, babe. 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:10.800 She said, take a bullet for you. Bret Hawthorne responds, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:16.520 take a bullet for you, sweetheart. She hung up. Every time, 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:18.560 that's the only that's what they say at the end. 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:24.239 That's they're cute thing, take a bullet for you. And 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.399 I've heard variations of this from a couple of different 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.879 people who had family members who would end every conversation 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:32.240 with I love you, you know, aunts and uncle's grandparents, 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:33.680 and they were like, you know, it always seemed kind 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.200 of silly to me until the day that like they died, 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.000 and then I remembered the last thing that they said 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:40.560 to me was that they loved me, And like, now 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.040 I understand why they did, and that's legitimately like heartwarming 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:48.040 and a wonderful thing. Uh, take a bullet for you 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:53.480 is not, No, it's not. It's so interesting to associate 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:58.040 violence with love. It says a lot about Bim. But 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.720 that's his equivalent of like, we just want them to 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:05.480 know how they feel. So mentioned being shot. Every time 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:09.480 you finish a conversation the last remember the last time 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:14.840 what we spoke, I said, I fucking die in a 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:19.040 rain of bullet fire. Yeah, for you, for them, Oh, 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.399 get stabbed in the abdomen repeatedly for you, babe. You 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.880 can stabbed in the abdomen repeatedly for you. Fucking funk 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:28.960 out my insides with searing hot metal for you, babe. 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:34.000 For you, I'll pull my hamstring for you, baby. Yeah, 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.919 I'll suffer hydrostatic shock as a high velocity around tears 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:41.520 through my organs for you, babe. I love it. You too, 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:45.840 of it, babe. And again, if you wanted to do 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.480 like a fun cookie couple, you could have them do 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:53.160 increasingly deranged versions of that to end their conversations. That's 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:56.760 what's happening. Show that shows like, oh they're playful and 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.080 they know yeah, gets sodomized by a drill bit for you, 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.800 pay you can have fun with it. They love each other. 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:06.400 Look at how much fun they Yeah, that's this. They're 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.000 kind of dark. They have this dark sensibility as opposed 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.600 to I can't even read them saying that without like 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:17.320 gagging time. Yeah, it has every time. There's a visceral 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:21.119 reaction to it too. It's the only piece of Vins 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:26.000 writing that makes me feel anything. Okay, So she hangs 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.880 up on Combat General Brett Hawthorne, and then she gets 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.800 a slip of paper from a sergeant in the Guard 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.400 that tells her it came from h Q. And we'll 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:39.920 find out what that slip of paper says. But first, Cody, Katie, Yeah, 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.280 you know what, We'll take a bullet for you, my man. No, 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:47.320 that's not the answer. The products and services that support 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:51.280 this podcast. Of course, we should really get sponsored by 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:56.040 body armor. Yeah. See if hesco will, Yeah that Robert 0:21:56.119 --> 0:22:01.280 throw some bucks at us where I'd prefer not to 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.800 get shot for you, babe. So I wear Class four plates, 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.520 stay out of danger and like be happy somewhere else. 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:22.800 I'll attempt to stay safe as best I can for you, babe. Okay, 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:27.600 we're back. So she's just gotten a letter from h Q. 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.280 Ellen goes to the some command headquarters. Oh boy, we're 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.520 talking about journalists again. By the time she arrived at 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:35.600 the mobile home, which is, I guess the mobile headquarters 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.120 for the Guard, a small credit journalists had formed outside. 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:40.679 As she stepped out of her car, the cameras clacked away. 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:42.680 The focus of the nation was certainly in New York, 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:44.720 she thought, but that didn't make the regional journalists any 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.240 less hungry to get their footage on the national broadcast. 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:53.280 It's an awkward sentence. Yeah, she saw the boxes. She 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:56.000 stepped inside the empty room sitting on a makeshift deft 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:58.680 at table. Somebody had cold from the local rec center. 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:00.920 That's an awkward way of tell you there's a box 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:02.840 in the room. That's yeah, I read that again. Please 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:05.600 she saw so this is her like she saw the boxes. 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.080 She steps inside the empty room, comma sitting on a 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:11.280 makeshift desk a table, somebody had cold from the local 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:15.199 rec center. The box was card Yeah, that sentence. She 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:18.080 walked into a trailer. There was a makeshift desk, and 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:20.680 on top of the desk was a box water log 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:26.120 and cardboard or something that I wanted to do, like 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:28.199 a search of how many commas are you used in 0:23:28.200 --> 0:23:33.120 this book? When we're done billions, that will break my machine. 0:23:33.280 --> 0:23:35.960 I only have four cores to compute that that with. 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:41.240 I don't have enough ram in this machine. So yeah, 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:43.520 the boxes cardboard, wet at the bottom, a wet plastic 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:45.640 bags hat beside it. The box had been carved open 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:47.640 at the top. She crept up on it. Why did 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:54.199 she creep up? Another real champion of a sentence? She 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:56.440 crept up on it, Comma the pressure in her chest, 0:23:56.560 --> 0:24:02.120 screaming at her to not look inside, screaming, huh, there's 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:03.880