Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe, Catty Armstrong and Jettie.
Speaker 2: And Pee.
Speaker 3: Armstrong and Caddy Strong.
Speaker 4: Welcome to a replay of the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 4: We are on vacation, but boy, do we have some
Speaker 4: good stuff for you.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed we do.
Speaker 2: And if you want to catch up on your ang
Speaker 2: listening during your travels, remember grab the podcast Armstrong and
Speaker 2: Getty on demand. You ought to subscribe wherever you like
Speaker 2: to get podcasts. Now on with the Infotainment.
Speaker 4: I got started on this jag because it's happening at
Speaker 4: a local skateboard park and it reminded me of something
Speaker 4: that happened to me years ago in la and I
Speaker 4: wanted to tell this story again because it drives me nuts.
Speaker 4: It's a great example of the conflict of visions that
Speaker 4: Thomas Soyl talks about between conservatives and progressives and just
Speaker 4: different ways of seeing the world and stuff like that,
Speaker 4: where I can't get in the mind. I can't even
Speaker 4: understand the point of view of the people I'm about
Speaker 4: to talk about, and they can't understand my point of view.
Speaker 4: So we've got a local story here in Fulsome, California.
Speaker 4: That's right, that Fulsome. I heard the training come and
Speaker 4: coming around the bend. I shot a guy just for
Speaker 4: fun whatever. That whole thing Fullsome skateboard park where for
Speaker 4: a couple of reasons, they're talking about doing away with
Speaker 4: the attendants at the skateboard park. The attendant's job is to,
Speaker 4: it says, stop graffiti from happening, break up fights, and
Speaker 4: to make sure skateboarders have helmets and pads on wouldn't
Speaker 4: they skateboard? The city is saying they don't have enough
Speaker 4: money for the attendant. A whole bunch of skateboarders showed
Speaker 4: up to various meetings and said, nobody goes because nobody's
Speaker 4: gonna wear all those pats.
Speaker 3: So what's the point.
Speaker 4: I just saw a video up on the TV and
Speaker 4: it showed one kid in this giant, glorious looking skateboard park.
Speaker 4: One kid's skateboarding, and it said on there it said
Speaker 4: they've had five hundred and eighty people a month on
Speaker 4: average during summertime. That's nobody's I did the math, that's
Speaker 4: nineteen a day or something like that. That's nobody. You
Speaker 4: should have two hundred kids a day there. I've had
Speaker 4: this experience drives me nuts. When I went to Los Angeles,
Speaker 4: my son was super into skateboarding. One time we went,
Speaker 4: we went to LA just to do like a tour
Speaker 4: of skateboard parks. He'd never been to different ones, and
Speaker 4: I thought, in LA's probably got a lot of great
Speaker 4: skateboard parks. We'd been to the one on Venice Beach
Speaker 4: and checked that out. As we traveled around, almost every
Speaker 4: skateboard park we went to, which was empty on a
Speaker 4: beautiful day eighty degree like it always isn't a La
Speaker 4: eighty degrees, slight breeze, This beautiful sunshine, empty skateboard park
Speaker 4: in the summertime, but an attendant there saying, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: you can't skate here because you don't have the pads.
Speaker 3: Because we didn't bring pads.
Speaker 4: I always had him wear a helmet, but he didn't
Speaker 4: have elbow pads and knee pads and all that sort
Speaker 4: of stuff, so he couldn't skateboard there. And the first
Speaker 4: one it was like annoying. The second one it was
Speaker 4: like annoying times five. By the third one, actually, I
Speaker 4: found a skateboard park that was packed full of people
Speaker 4: skateboarding because they didn't have an attendant, got to skateboard
Speaker 4: for a while, tried a different skateboard park, also empty,
Speaker 4: with a person there with a clipboard attending it. And
Speaker 4: that's when I started getting angry and lecturing people and saying, yes,
Speaker 4: do you realize there's a skateboard park like a mile
Speaker 4: from here that's packed full of people's skateboarding, kids baking.
Speaker 4: You have nobody here, So what are you accomplishing?
Speaker 5: You?
Speaker 3: Why did you build a skateboard park.
Speaker 4: It's empty on a gorgeous date, nobody's using it.
Speaker 3: Well, we need to make sure kids are safe.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, you don't, but you might as
Speaker 4: well not have a skatebo either have one or don't.
Speaker 4: But you're not stopping kids from wrecking on their skateboard
Speaker 4: because they're not skateboarding, or they're traveling further away to
Speaker 4: go to some place where they don't have to wear pads.
Speaker 4: And every I said this at several skateboard parks, and
Speaker 4: all they did was look at me like I'm an
Speaker 4: angry lunatic, partially because I was an angry lunatic.
Speaker 3: But I like, I can't get in the headspace.
Speaker 4: Of anybody who could be an attendant, or the parents
Speaker 4: who think that's a good idea. Better to have an
Speaker 4: empty skateboard park than to let our kids skin their
Speaker 4: knees or elbows.
Speaker 2: The paternalism probably a poor choice of words, since some
Speaker 2: of these people are literally fathers, but the condescension, the
Speaker 2: nannyism of it is disgusting to me. The idea that kids,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, for the first time in human history,
Speaker 2: can't within reasonable bounds a that's their own risk tolerance
Speaker 2: and their own willingness to endure the negative consequences of
Speaker 2: overdoing it. I mean, for the first time in human history,
Speaker 2: kids must be protected from banging up their elbows and knees.
Speaker 2: I do not get someone coming to that conclusion and
Speaker 2: being so pleased with themselves.
Speaker 3: I'm horrified by it.
Speaker 2: I'm disgusted by it literally because I see what it's
Speaker 2: doing the generation of kids, generations of kids.
Speaker 3: Why do kids have so.
Speaker 2: Much anxiety because they haven't been allowed in general, because
Speaker 2: they haven't been allowed to develop a sense of risk
Speaker 2: tolerance throughout their lives and confidence that they know.
Speaker 3: What they're doing. They're veal caves. That's indisputable. It's been documented.
Speaker 4: As we've talked about before, Europe has figured out that
Speaker 4: they're doing away with like the super safe parts and
Speaker 4: stuff like that. They're moving toward kids doing more dangerous stuff,
Speaker 4: banging their heads and elbows and stuff more often. Because
Speaker 4: it's good for you for all kinds of different emotional reasons.
Speaker 4: But I also wonder just what it does to children.
Speaker 4: I know with my kids, part of it. What it
Speaker 4: does to children to see all these stupid, freaking, they
Speaker 4: don't make any sense laws. I know it's made my
Speaker 4: kids less respectful of all laws, is what it's done.
Speaker 4: And of course it would because when you're confronted with
Speaker 4: stupid ones, it makes you think everybody who makes laws
Speaker 4: is stupid? So why would I pay attention to this
Speaker 4: one because that one's obviously dumb.
Speaker 2: If Thomas Jefferson were here, he might say, first of all,
Speaker 2: what are those metal things flying through this guy? But
Speaker 2: he would also say, this reminds me of that discussion
Speaker 2: you guys had about rent controls like twenty minutes ago.
Speaker 3: This is the same thing.
Speaker 2: You have a market of faith or respect for the law,
Speaker 2: and your sons have seen more and more stupid.
Speaker 3: Useless, paternalistic laws.
Speaker 2: Their faith in the laws declining, they will behave politically
Speaker 2: in a way that.
Speaker 3: Ends that as soon as they can.
Speaker 2: If indeed, you can fight the nanty state and they
Speaker 2: will be beaten back by your son's disgust with a paternalism.
Speaker 4: I know a woman who is super nice and very
Speaker 4: helpful to me, and just like the nicest person in
Speaker 4: the world, have been very helpful to me in all
Speaker 4: kinds of different ways of my life. But she told
Speaker 4: me the story and I kept my mouth shut about
Speaker 4: how when the skateboard park in my town opened up,
Speaker 4: how she and another mom they would go there on
Speaker 4: the weekends and set up and monitor to make sure
Speaker 4: all the kids were wearing the proper pads and helmets
Speaker 4: and everything like that. And she said she kept it
Speaker 4: up for a summer or two, but they just couldn't
Speaker 4: keep up the schedule. I did, I just like, were
Speaker 4: you a kid ever once? And maybe a few girls didn't.
Speaker 4: Did you notice the boys did bang their knees and
Speaker 4: have bloody eb have s scabs on their elbows and
Speaker 4: knees constantly as a child, And did you think that
Speaker 4: that was.
Speaker 3: Just awful, like Aschwitzer.
Speaker 4: Or something like that, that they were having scabs on
Speaker 4: their knees. It's like the most normal thing in the
Speaker 4: world for a ten year old boy to have a
Speaker 4: scab on his knee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't hold back. I generally say something in
Speaker 2: situations like that. It's probably why I have very few friends.
Speaker 2: But uh, yeah.
Speaker 4: Well I can't stop short of you're a psycho, because
Speaker 4: I think you are.
Speaker 3: I see that's your problem.
Speaker 4: How do you not look around an empty skateboard park
Speaker 4: and think, well, this is somehow self defeating If we
Speaker 4: have nobody using the skateboard park, I'm not sure what
Speaker 4: we're doing.
Speaker 3: Here, right exactly? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, you gotta develop going from emotional
Speaker 2: gear one to five. You got to you gotta be
Speaker 2: able to settle into two and three there and make
Speaker 2: the argument. You know, I respectfully disagree. I think kids
Speaker 2: need to take risks and get banged up and learn
Speaker 2: that it won't kill them and decide how risky they
Speaker 2: want to live their life. It's great the kids get
Speaker 2: banged up. Were you not a kid once? Do you
Speaker 2: think kids are built differently now? Are they're like bones
Speaker 2: made of glass now and they didn't used to be?
Speaker 3: Every time? What is your thought process?
Speaker 4: I just think it makes me insane that sort of thing,
Speaker 4: all right, My alternative to safety first, plus the greatest
Speaker 4: quote ever on this topic from the Great C. S. Lewis,
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Speaker 4: I wonder why I can't let go of this stuff
Speaker 4: as well as I can, Like I've had some unfortunate
Speaker 4: breaks in my life that I've been able to mostly
Speaker 4: let go of much better than I can let go.
Speaker 3: Of this sort of thing. We're driving around all these
Speaker 3: skateboard parts.
Speaker 4: Finally, I was just getting Sam had been looking forward
Speaker 4: to the skateboard parts so much. It was our vacation.
Speaker 4: We were there and we couldn't go anywhere. So I
Speaker 4: finally found I had to go to like two stores.
Speaker 4: Finally found a bike store where they sold knee pads
Speaker 4: and elbow pads, stuff like that, just so we could
Speaker 4: go skateboard. We went to one and they said they
Speaker 4: weren't the right kind of elbow pads. And I don't
Speaker 4: think I've ever been angrier in my life, and I
Speaker 4: just couldn't let it go. It was like my head
Speaker 4: was gonna pop off. I hate that feeling where I
Speaker 4: just it's a cognitive dissonance I just can't make. I
Speaker 4: couldn't make the empty skate park, skateboard park, beautiful day.
Speaker 4: There's nothing wrong with this, It doesn't hurt anything to
Speaker 4: bang your knee. All fit into my head. It just
Speaker 4: was making me crazy.
Speaker 2: Right right, There is absolutely a vein of especially you know,
Speaker 2: it clicked in my head when you got to that
Speaker 2: example of oh yeah, he's got elbow pads, but they're
Speaker 2: not the right cod right that That is absolutely the
Speaker 2: intoxication of power aiding What I was going to talk
Speaker 2: about here, just the great CS. Lewis quote, which we've
Speaker 2: used many times on the show. But of all tyrannies,
Speaker 2: a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim
Speaker 2: maybe the most oppressive. It may be better to live
Speaker 2: under robber barons than under omniptent, moral, busybodies. The robber
Speaker 2: baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity or greed may
Speaker 2: at some point be satiated. But those who torment us
Speaker 2: for our own good will torment men us without end,
Speaker 2: for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Speaker 2: So true, I want to popular popularize the saying, maybe we.
Speaker 3: Gotta get T shirts going safety.
Speaker 2: Third, yeah, I and people would ask what Wait, Wait,
Speaker 2: isn't the expression safety first and the safe. Maybe the
Speaker 2: back of the safety third T shirt would have one
Speaker 2: courage two curiosity three safety safety third. Right, I'll bet
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about handing your four year old of
Speaker 2: forty five letting them squeeze off a couple of shots.
Speaker 2: We're talking about kids riding their bike at a parking
Speaker 2: playing ball.
Speaker 3: I'm sure the one woman still tells stories about the
Speaker 3: bald lunatic. Okay, because I remember walking away, have fun
Speaker 3: monitoring your empty skateboard park. You're doing a lot of
Speaker 3: good for the world. I was so mad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she cannot conceive of what you were trying to communicate.
Speaker 3: Now she thinks that, thank god, if I hadn't been here,
Speaker 3: that lunatic would have let his kids skateboard without me pads,
Speaker 3: how many people would have died.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a stereotype, and it's oversimplified because there
Speaker 2: are many tough, smart, great women who have helped make
Speaker 2: America great. But we have gone from maybe too much
Speaker 2: of a daddy society to too much.
Speaker 3: Of a mommy.
Speaker 2: So, without a doubt, oh, we are clutching our children
Speaker 2: to our aprons and not letting them risk a single thing.
Speaker 3: Good Lord, The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 1: More Jack your Joe podcasts and our hot links Jack
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Joe Getty, The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 3: I don't know what happened in the.
Speaker 5: Keys honey or oh my god, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
Speaker 5: that I don't know what to say to that.
Speaker 3: I apologize. Go ahead the question here. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 3: been totally thrown Yeah, I can imagine. I'm a little
Speaker 3: thrown by that. Also, if I'm being honest, I don't
Speaker 3: know what to say. Well, go ahead, you've only gone
Speaker 3: a minute and seven. The so the lawyer talking to
Speaker 3: the judge drops off, honey, Oh my gosh. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I'm a little thrown by that. Yeah, me too. I
Speaker 3: gotta play that for my daughter. Oh that's funny.
Speaker 2: She's getting ready to audition for her call law school
Speaker 2: mock trial team, which is a very very good one.
Speaker 2: And the idea that you would accidentally call the judge
Speaker 2: honey is just.
Speaker 3: Can I hear that again? Well? Just yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 5: This could have been three separate, but it wasn't three separate.
Speaker 3: Let's go with what happened in the Keys.
Speaker 5: The honey, Oh my God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that.
Speaker 5: I don't know what to say to that. I apologize.
Speaker 3: You know, that's good.
Speaker 2: You turn to the bailiff to say, let me borrow
Speaker 2: your gun and just do the right thing.
Speaker 3: It's over. Oh that's hilargy. I'm sorry. I'm a little
Speaker 3: thrown by the Yeah, me too. You gotta play that
Speaker 3: for your dad, Katie, who was a judge. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: and the and the honey.
Speaker 4: Was like in a just kind of a half condescending yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 4: very much.
Speaker 3: So, oh honey, come on, let them, let the men
Speaker 3: handle this.
Speaker 2: His only possible savior is to call his wife in
Speaker 2: the court and say, your honor. We had a bit
Speaker 2: of a go around this morning. I was arguing with him,
Speaker 2: he was arguing with me. It's probably stuck in his head.
Speaker 2: I mean, because that's.
Speaker 3: That is pretty funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the fact that the fact that he can't just
Speaker 4: move on, I just, oh, he's.
Speaker 3: So horrified by what he's done. He's just got to say,
Speaker 3: your honor.
Speaker 2: I'm filing a writ of vacation and I am going
Speaker 2: to become a plumber.
Speaker 3: Somebody else needs to take over this case. Yeah, what
Speaker 3: kind of trial? It is, But like, if he's defending me,
Speaker 3: i'd send him, Hey, can I get my money back?
Speaker 3: Or can I get a lawyer who doesn't call the judge? Honey?
Speaker 3: Is that possible?
Speaker 1: Hey?
Speaker 2: Thanks for not calling her bitch a counselor holy cow,
Speaker 2: there's going to be an assault charge next year, honor
Speaker 2: give me just a saying with this guy, I.
Speaker 3: Would stand up. Did everybody hear that? See that? Do
Speaker 3: I deserve my money back? Show hands? I'd raise my hand, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: give him his money back. Oh that's funny. What are
Speaker 3: fridge cigarettes? I like to hip you, obviously to new
Speaker 3: phrases and things like that, whether they're acronyms or two
Speaker 3: words blended together or whatever, you know, staycations, whatever they are.
Speaker 3: What kind of summer we're supposed to have? That's right?
Speaker 3: What are we having? We had this last week? Who
Speaker 3: was a therapy bro summer? That's what we're having? Oh goodness,
Speaker 3: too many summers and moons? Fridge cigaretts.
Speaker 4: It's your pop in the refrigerator, soda in the refrigerator,
Speaker 4: you know, like sitting is the new smoking.
Speaker 3: Somebody actually said that to me the other day and said,
Speaker 3: I believe sitting is a new smoking, And I think
Speaker 3: they weren't trying to be funny. I think they just act.
Speaker 4: They were trying to pretend that they came up with
Speaker 4: that on their own, and they were presenting it to
Speaker 4: me anyway. I just let it rolls. Fridge cigarettes, you're
Speaker 4: drinking soda. It's like smoking cigarettes taking years off your life.
Speaker 4: That's a pretty good turn off.
Speaker 3: The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 6: Why did spoke at a bipartisan event to encourage Democrats
Speaker 6: or Republicans to work to protect social security together? Which
Speaker 6: seems about as likely to happen as a reboot of
Speaker 6: Fiddler on the Roof starring Kanye West. But social security
Speaker 6: is number one for Joe Biden. Literally, his social Security
Speaker 6: number is one.
Speaker 4: That's kind of interesting as a lead into this Republicans
Speaker 4: newark Ats not being able to work together. It would
Speaker 4: seem that they could work together on cutting spending based
Speaker 4: on this polling that just came out from the Cato Institute.
Speaker 4: CATO is a serious think tank. It's a conservative think tank.
Speaker 4: They worked with you GOV on this survey and it's
Speaker 4: one of your really big, large number of people, wide
Speaker 4: reaching lots of questions sort of survey that comes out
Speaker 4: every once in a while from these think tanks. I
Speaker 4: don't know which of these numbers is my favorite. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of them that are just mind blowingly make
Speaker 4: me happy, But I can't believe because public will is
Speaker 4: a real big part of getting anything done in a democracy.
Speaker 3: Obviously, if you got big.
Speaker 4: Majorities of people that want something to happen, you should
Speaker 4: be able to get it to happen and run on it.
Speaker 4: Here's my favorite of all the spending we've done in
Speaker 4: the last ten years, and we've done a lot of
Speaker 4: spending in the last ten years.
Speaker 3: Eighty five percent. Now that's a big number.
Speaker 4: Whenever you get eighty five percent of people in agreement
Speaker 4: on something, you'd think you could get.
Speaker 3: Political will to do something.
Speaker 4: Eighty five percent say that spending is either not helped
Speaker 4: them or made their lives worse.
Speaker 3: Eighty five percent. That's astounding.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't get that from taking it in through the
Speaker 4: mainstream media, who feels like all government programs are wonderful
Speaker 4: and doges trying to cut back on any of them
Speaker 4: as a horror. Eighty five percent of Americans say all
Speaker 4: that spending has either not done anything for me or
Speaker 4: actually made my life worth the worse forty two percent
Speaker 4: no impact, forty three percent say it reduced to their
Speaker 4: quality of life.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's got to be inflation, which is the greatest
Speaker 2: teacher of economic principles in the history of mankind.
Speaker 4: Well, ors, just I regularly say, and this is true
Speaker 4: for me in my own personal life. I believe the
Speaker 4: government stops me from doing things more than it helps me.
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, I think so. I mean, And well, do
Speaker 3: you drive on the roads? Yeah? We we know you're
Speaker 3: an idiot. Courses. I'm not even gonna explain why you're mora.
Speaker 3: I know, moron.
Speaker 4: And by the way, this is a non partisan observation.
Speaker 4: Eight and ten Democrats and nine and ten Republicans believe
Speaker 4: that the increase in federal spending has either made their
Speaker 4: lives not better or worse.
Speaker 2: Boy, this is really heartening, I know, if the Republican
Speaker 2: If the Republicans can keep between the ditches and not
Speaker 2: roll the car of their messaging over, it seems to
Speaker 2: me like the ground is super fertile for some good,
Speaker 2: solid conservatism in the years to come.
Speaker 4: Three quarters of Americans say the government spends too much.
Speaker 4: Love that seventy six percent the government spends too much.
Speaker 4: And again it's not a partisan thing at all. Majorities
Speaker 4: of Democrats fifty nine percent of Democrats think the government
Speaker 4: spends too much money.
Speaker 3: Well, you'd never get that from the main from your
Speaker 3: mainstream media coverage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the question of what do you cut and
Speaker 2: how and how much?
Speaker 3: That's the devil is in the details. But we do
Speaker 3: have an enormous.
Speaker 2: Generalized agreement that, yeah, we need to cut again two thirds.
Speaker 2: You get the opposite message from all of the coverage
Speaker 2: of doges, for instance.
Speaker 4: So almost everyone agrees there is waste frauden abuse in
Speaker 4: the federal government. The number is ninety eight percent. I
Speaker 4: have out know if I've ever seen a poll that
Speaker 4: reached ninety eight percent. Usually you have more than two percent.
Speaker 4: They're like, no opinion, I don't know, refuse to answer. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but would you like me to stab you right now?
Speaker 4: You might get ninety eight percent saying no, no opinion,
Speaker 4: ninety I'm not sure stab me as what. Ninety eight
Speaker 4: percent broadly agreed there is waste frauder abuse in the
Speaker 4: federal government.
Speaker 3: Of course, just to say no, you'd be a crazy person.
Speaker 4: About half say there is a great deal, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: than twenty percent a moderate amount.
Speaker 2: If hundreds of millions of dollars isn't a great deal
Speaker 2: to you, what are you elon Musk or something?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like I said, there's so many good numbers here,
Speaker 4: I don't even know which ones to pick out the
Speaker 4: most this one. One of the reasons this got attention
Speaker 4: was some of the tax stuff yesterday. Fifty five percent
Speaker 4: of Americans think their taxes are too high.
Speaker 2: Which I thought was really interesting, especially especially given what
Speaker 2: we were talking about yesterday on Tax Day that the
Speaker 2: top forty percent or so of income levels pay all
Speaker 2: of the income tax.
Speaker 4: But fifty five percent of American seature taxes are too high.
Speaker 4: Fifty five percent same number believe they pay more than
Speaker 4: their fair share in taxes. That obviously is interesting given
Speaker 4: the fact that half the country does not pay federal
Speaker 4: taxes federal income tax.
Speaker 2: Although you have to remember, you know, a property tax
Speaker 2: hammers a lot of people, sales tax.
Speaker 3: Sales tax.
Speaker 4: I think it's probably what gets a lot of people sure.
Speaker 4: How about the controversial Trump tax cuts from twenty seventeen
Speaker 4: and whether they should be extended or not. According to this,
Speaker 4: eighty five percent of Americans support extending the twenty seventeen
Speaker 4: tax cuts.
Speaker 3: Eighty five percent. It's a gift of million airs and
Speaker 3: billion ass. How is this a controversial issue?
Speaker 2: If the mainstream media was not what they are, could
Speaker 2: Democrats win a single election as they're currently constituted.
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: They need some of the best wordsmiths. Well, actually most
Speaker 2: journalists are wordsmiths at all. They're parrots. But they need
Speaker 2: the power of the media colossus to polish their their
Speaker 2: poop if you will. I'm sorry, I just didn't want
Speaker 2: to use that common expression polishing a turd because it's disgusting.
Speaker 2: But that's said. But it's good though. It's illustrative, Jack,
Speaker 2: I mean, it really makes the point there's got to
Speaker 2: be a better doing.
Speaker 3: There's got to be a better one, is there? It
Speaker 3: got to be that doesn't include the T word.
Speaker 2: Thoroughly lipsticking the pig of their policies.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: So three quarters of people agree with the statement the
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen tax cuts should be made permanent because businesses
Speaker 4: and families need stability of the tax code to plan
Speaker 4: for the future.
Speaker 3: Three quarters agree with that.
Speaker 4: Also, three quarters agree that tax cuts should be made permanent.
Speaker 3: Because taxes are too high.
Speaker 4: Three quarters of Americans think the Trump tax cuts should
Speaker 4: be made permanent because taxes are too high.
Speaker 3: Wow, did you hear the pot about the millionaires?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: You did? Oh you're rejecting it. I gotta get to that.
Speaker 4: Then, since you brought that up, do the spending, because
Speaker 4: you'll that fits in perfect what you just said. A
Speaker 4: majority of Americans admire the rich. Sixty two thirds disagree
Speaker 4: with the statement wealth should be taken from the rich
Speaker 4: and given to the poor.
Speaker 3: Two thirds of Americans disagree with that.
Speaker 2: Wow, this is a different country than the media would
Speaker 2: have you believe.
Speaker 3: I'd zastly different.
Speaker 4: Three out of five Americans strongly agree ninety percent strongly
Speaker 4: or somewhat agree that quote. There's nothing wrong with trying
Speaker 4: to make as much money as you can. Ninety percent
Speaker 4: strongly or somewhat agree with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: When asked specifically about billionaires, seventy one percent disagree that
Speaker 4: it's immoral for society to allow people to become billionaires.
Speaker 4: Seventy one percent don't agree with that statement. You hear
Speaker 4: it all the time from the AOC Bernie crowd, Elizabeth
Speaker 4: Warren crowd, and they put it on the news like
Speaker 4: that's you know, representing half.
Speaker 2: Of America, right right, Yeah, And anybody who does think
Speaker 2: we should make it impossible to you know, become a billionaire, you.
Speaker 3: Just you're so dumb. You are so dumb. We just
Speaker 3: need you to get out of the way, please.
Speaker 2: As if you come up with a great idea that
Speaker 2: one person likes and it makes you a dollar, that's fine.
Speaker 2: If a million people like that idea and give you
Speaker 2: a dollar, that's fine.
Speaker 3: But if a billion people like that idea and give
Speaker 3: you a dollar, that's wrong.
Speaker 4: Or to borrow again, you're just so dumb you need
Speaker 4: to get out of the way. Well, not near as
Speaker 4: many people agree with that as I thought. And I've
Speaker 4: been misled myself. And you know, we're in the industry
Speaker 4: and taking lots of media and read lots of polls,
Speaker 4: but I've been misled to think there that in modern
Speaker 4: America there were way more people that hate the rich
Speaker 4: and think something's wrong there that it seems to be
Speaker 4: true two thirds think wealth should not be taken from
Speaker 4: the rich and given to the poor.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I just didn't know. So.
Speaker 2: I think part of the reason that our perception might
Speaker 2: be a little warped is that even Some of my
Speaker 2: favorite conservative journalists are of the coastal elites forty and
Speaker 2: they're nice fellas, and they have great principles, but I
Speaker 2: don't think they know America and listen to say absolutely
Speaker 2: do not. This is going to sound awfully like a
Speaker 2: self backpadding, but I think as a couple of guys
Speaker 2: from you know, fairly average families in the Midwest, I
Speaker 2: don't feel like an elite anything. I've never hung out
Speaker 2: with those people. I wouldn't be comfortable there. I would
Speaker 2: much rather, you know, a drink beer with my neighbor,
Speaker 2: Larry the truck driver. I just and I think maybe
Speaker 2: we have that advantage, and we, all of us friends,
Speaker 2: have to trust our own perceptions instead of that of
Speaker 2: the bizarro funhouse.
Speaker 3: Mirror of the media.
Speaker 4: I know a lot of you already believe that the
Speaker 4: fact that eighty five percent of people say all that
Speaker 4: government spending has done nothing for them or made their
Speaker 4: lives worse is amazing something. Yeah, and you know over
Speaker 4: half of people say my taxes are too high. All
Speaker 4: that fitting together, how do we not get a government
Speaker 4: that spends less and keeps taxes low?
Speaker 2: Well, I think you know, part of the answer would
Speaker 2: be the swamp, which includes many Republicans and Democrats who
Speaker 2: have a absolutely enormous financial interest in keeping government huge.
Speaker 4: Right, there are solid majorities, and I could do more
Speaker 4: of than numbers, but I don't want to bore you
Speaker 4: to death. But the solid majorities of people that think
Speaker 4: it's the spending it's not the taxing. I mean that
Speaker 4: is that is a settled issue in this country. It's
Speaker 4: the spending, not the taxing, and we need to deal
Speaker 4: with it from a spending standpoint. So we're not getting
Speaker 4: the government we deserve on this front.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so true. It's encouraging people believe that in
Speaker 2: the numbers that they do. It is discouraging that we
Speaker 2: are fighting to make any.
Speaker 3: Progress in reigning in the insanity.
Speaker 2: But right, yeah, because it's our duty is citizens, So
Speaker 2: I guess we keep trying.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's barely, uh, you're barely able to believe that
Speaker 4: democracy works. I mean, you know, look at the order issue.
Speaker 4: That's what I've been saying for years. It's not controversy
Speaker 4: at all either, Like people want to secure border, but
Speaker 4: we haven't been able to do it in my entire
Speaker 4: adult lifetime, right, right, very frustrating. Yeah, yeah, it is
Speaker 4: nice job of those of you out there who agree
Speaker 4: that all this spending has made your life worse of anything.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Armstrong see Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 2: Absolutely need a moonshot style effort to reform education in
Speaker 2: this country because it is absolutely killing us. Michael, it's
Speaker 2: a campus madness update, good and bad news editions, good
Speaker 2: and bad news, screaming, how's madness, you idiot, I'm campus.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's quite discream Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 4: So disembovement figures into the story somehow, so well metaphorically speaking.
Speaker 2: So we'll start with some good news, really interesting piece
Speaker 2: about Tufts University, which is to the left of Trotsky
Speaker 2: Boston area. But there's a professor by the name of
Speaker 2: Hirsch there who teaches a class on American Conservatism that
Speaker 2: is always one hundred percent enrolled and extremely popular, and
Speaker 2: he a man of the sane center left, has them
Speaker 2: read Frederick Hayek's Road to Serve them at Ininran's The
Speaker 2: Nature of Government, and then has lefty writers assigned as well.
Speaker 3: That says, all right, let's talk about this issue.
Speaker 2: And it is a classic American education where you have
Speaker 2: to understand both sides before you say which one you're on,
Speaker 2: and he is systematically steel manning conservative arguments for the
Speaker 2: college kids. And the really encouraging part about this is
Speaker 2: the kids love it. That's interesting, and poll after pol
Speaker 2: has shown that a lot of college kids resent the
Speaker 2: cancel culture and the bully culture and the radical culture.
Speaker 2: But they just they're afraid or you know, intimidated into silence.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot more curiosity out there than I
Speaker 2: think you would think from looking at college camp.
Speaker 3: God, are we.
Speaker 4: Actually coming out of peak that? And we'll never have
Speaker 4: to deal with it again, at least in our lifetimes.
Speaker 4: I mean, did we just live through the pendulum swinging
Speaker 4: to the far end of that nuttiness?
Speaker 3: I share hope. So I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm a little afraid of it.
Speaker 2: Being like a sports team that you know, has a
Speaker 2: very bad beginning of the season, then they win six
Speaker 2: in a row and you think, all right, and then
Speaker 2: that is just a blip and they go back to
Speaker 2: being bad. I think there's so much of a fight
Speaker 2: to go on, But let me plunge on here.
Speaker 3: We can talk about this at length.
Speaker 2: A great piece in the Free Press about how all
Speaker 2: over the country including in some surprising places, educators are
Speaker 2: covering up for their own failures wholesale. We should have
Speaker 2: the best education system in the world, they write, We
Speaker 2: should have an education system that reflects us being a superpower.
Speaker 2: But there's no one with a straight face who can
Speaker 2: say that the United States has a world class education system.
Speaker 2: And that's from a higher up in the New Jersey
Speaker 2: Department of Education, now retired. But they go through place
Speaker 2: after place where because they are failing to meet any standard,
Speaker 2: they are systematically changing the standards, including this shock to me.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, Oklahoma schools seemed to perform a miracle.
Speaker 2: They went from twenty four percent proficiency in reading to
Speaker 2: forty seven percent in two years.
Speaker 3: You set number, doubling the previous figure. You see that
Speaker 3: number in a year. You know something funky happen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, indeed, if it sounds too good to be true,
Speaker 2: that's because it was. In last year Oklahoma lowered its
Speaker 2: cut scores score a student needs to hit on a
Speaker 2: test to be considered proficient.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable, that's good hearts law. Oh yeah. Once once a
Speaker 3: measure becomes a goal, it ceases to be a good measure. Yep.
Speaker 2: Trend is also happening in New York State. After not
Speaker 2: a single eighth grader in the upstate city of Schenectady
Speaker 2: tested proficient in math in twenty twenty two, state officials
Speaker 2: lowered the scores the following year, Wisconsin lowered cut scores
Speaker 2: last year. Illinois is about to lower its scores, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera.
Speaker 1: We did it.
Speaker 4: It's a lot of blue states, but Oklahoma shocked me.
Speaker 4: And we've done it in California a couple of times. Well,
Speaker 4: it speaks as much to the nature of bureaucracy as liberalism. Well,
Speaker 4: it's a good hearts law. I mean that seems to
Speaker 4: be a law no matter what you, no matter your politics,
Speaker 4: you come up with a goal, or you measure something.
Speaker 4: Then you come up with a goal, and then you
Speaker 4: just fudge to meet the goal, and so the measure
Speaker 4: doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 3: And that's it happens over and over again.
Speaker 4: I can come up with one hundred examples off the
Speaker 4: top of my head, because I think it's a fascinating
Speaker 4: aspect of the way the human brain works. But how
Speaker 4: are there not people raise their hands saying, we can't
Speaker 4: be lowering the standards. We need to raise the quality
Speaker 4: shield tradition.
Speaker 2: Yeah right right, lift up the children, don't drop the standards.
Speaker 3: That'd be a good slogan.
Speaker 2: Veering back to good news, the Department of Education on Friday,
Speaker 2: Cancer which still exists, apparently canceled fifteen million dollars in
Speaker 2: federal grants that were used to fund diversity programs at
Speaker 2: three universities in California, State, La, Virginia Commonwealth, and University
Speaker 2: of Saint Thomas and Minnesota. All had received giant, multimillion
Speaker 2: dollar grants, part of a billion dollars a billion that
Speaker 2: the Biden Education Department spent on diversity programs in America's schools,
Speaker 2: nearly half of which went to grants for race based hiring.
Speaker 2: That is, at least temporarily on the way out. Now
Speaker 2: back to bad news. Two stories here that are adjoined
Speaker 2: at the Hip Brown University Medical School that's one.
Speaker 3: Of your elite IVY leaguers. By the way, elite.
Speaker 2: I almost vomit when I say that about these universities.
Speaker 2: But they now give diversity, equity and inclusion more weight
Speaker 2: than excellent clinical skills in its promotion criteria for faculty
Speaker 2: raising questions. Duh about the equality of teaching and patient
Speaker 2: care at the elite medical school and underscoring how deeply
Speaker 2: deis penetrated medical education. Again, when they decide what faculty
Speaker 2: to promote, they now give DEI more weight than excellent
Speaker 2: clinical skills.
Speaker 3: I saw that over the week in medicine. I meant
Speaker 3: to mention on the air that is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 4: I was looking at the actual paperwork, the criteria, and
Speaker 4: really your plan for how you're answering the question of
Speaker 4: how you're going to get diversity, equity and inclusion into your.
Speaker 3: Your medical practice is.
Speaker 4: More important than your actual skills, right, That is how
Speaker 4: it's important.
Speaker 3: How is that even possible?
Speaker 1: The Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, Borjack or Joe podcasts
Speaker 1: and our hotlinks and Armstrong and get dot com