Generations at odds: America’s identity crisis

0:00We are Faith and Fury, Love and Fire. This is the Human Equation, where every voice counts and every true cuts deep. With your host, Joseph Pangaro. Good evening everybody and welcome to the Human Equation. I'm your host, Joseph Pangaro. So I've been thinking a lot about the format of our get-togethers here. Now I like to have the panel on. The problem is it's been scheduling is really the truth. To have three other people on is a scheduling nightmare. I could have them zoom in or some kind of internet platform. I prefer to have the men of the platform in the same room with me. We get along really well and it also helps us to interact with each other in real time

1:04as opposed to on the internet. You know, internet is kind of weird because you can see each other and it feels like you're on camera and people always behave differently when they're on camera than when they're just sitting talking. So I'm trying to think of, you know, what else can we do? I'm going to get the panel back together because I do enjoy them and their point of view is often very, very good. We have lots of different personalities on the panel and that's what really helps because it gives us a bigger view of the world because you're getting different points of view from people who see it differently, right? That's part of the human equation. So I'm thinking one of the things I might want to do is I might want to add a monologue, a specific monologue. Now, since it's usually just me here and you and we're talking, I guess the whole program is really a monologue. But I cover topics, right, and I think one of the things that a monologue, a specific

2:10monologue does is that I take a topic, some kind of a topic and really focus on it and give it the do that it deserves, so to speak. So tonight I have a couple of things I want to talk about and I don't know how much we're going to get to it because, you know, how things go, you get enraptured with a particular topic, but maybe we look at some other things as well. So if I was to do a monologue, I think it would be something that would try to focus the intent of the program. So when I make my notes, when I go over topics that I want to talk about, I make notes and I try and see what things connect to other things and you, well, you know, when I talk about it, I say, okay, now let's connect these dots, right, or let's see where this brings us together. That's the purpose of what I'm trying to do here is to connect us to thinking and ideas

3:11and whatnot. So if I was to do a monologue tonight, I think it would be about being an American and what it means to be an American. In this modern age, I've been watching a lot of documentary programs. Now first of all, I love documentaries. I love autobiography, I can't say autobiographic books by individuals because you get some idea of what were they thinking when certain things happened? How did they form their thoughts? Big things. Usually we talk about, you know, memoirs of people who have done great things and you try and look at it from their perspective because what do they say? Extraordinary people are really ordinary people who are put in extraordinary circumstance. So what comes to mind is recently, I think it was Ohio.

4:12There was a high school there like there are thousands and thousands of high schools across our nation and this kid shows up, a student shows up with a gun to shoot people. You know, a school shooter and he walks in the front door. First of all, I saw him just pop in the front door, how he just popped in the front door. I don't know why there wasn't a security there, why it wasn't locked. I don't know, I don't know the full story on what it was. But he walks in, like it was nothing, he's got the gun in his hand and out of nowhere comes the school principal and I wish I knew the principal's name at the moment I would give him credit. The video is amazing, you can go look at it, it should be everywhere, it's on all kinds of news feeds. This principal runs and dives on this kid and takes him down and fights him for the hand gun. He had a hand gun. And what we know from the initial encounter is that the principal was shot in the leg as this was taking place and he ended up wrestling the gun away from the kid and saving.

5:16Who knows how many people in that school, right? Who knows what would have happened if he didn't. Now this is a man who is a school principal. Now I've worked in schools, I was a director of school safety and security, I teach in schools, I know lots of my friends are teachers and administrators and I got into their heads about safety and security. And what I know is that these teachers, and we can complain about teachers from now until the cows come home, so to speak, we don't like what they're teaching in school districts they don't like, we don't like the messaging the teachers do, the flags they put up and we can all argue about all that stuff. But I know in the background, having been in these schools all across this country, very liberal school districts, very conservative school districts, to a person, I can tell you that these administrators and teachers and volunteers and everybody that are involved

6:17in these schools, they love these kids, they really do. They care about the school experience, they care about every kid, it's really, it's so deep for me to sit here and try and pick it apart at this moment. All I'm telling you is that as a conservative person, going to the schools, doing the work that I do, I'm thinking, well, you know, I got to be very careful what I say because you could offend somebody, just saying, you know, a simple thing. My experience has been that no matter where they stand politically, these teachers love these kids, they really do, which is one of the reasons that they get involved in some of the, some of the topics or some of the processes that maybe some of us find objectionable. They do it because they think they're expanding the horizon of these kids, they're protecting these kids, they are helping these kids to grow into who they really are.

7:21Now we can argue that they're confused, they shouldn't do those things, they should teach, reading, writing, and respite, but the reality is each community has got to decide what it is they want to teach their kids and all I'm saying is that having been involved I can tell you, I've been surprised, I've been really surprised how much these teachers and administrators, they just, they would give their lives for this kid, so when I see this principle run out and dive on this kid, I see an ordinary person acting in extraordinary circumstances and that's what makes for amazing people and when I think about our country, see I'm trying to connect this together, this is my first time trying to figure out, you know, do I do a monologue and what should it be focused or just go to a topic?

8:27America is such a unique place and the more, the more I experience my country and live my country and see the differences in my country and then study the historical changes in our country and that's why I've been watching a lot of documentaries and that's where I started here is that I'm always on a search for knowledge, so in my company I have a tag line that says, learning is a lifelong endeavor and you say, oh that sounds, that sounds pretty good Joe, learning is a lifelong endeavor, what does that mean? Well what does that mean actually? It means it's actually a reflection of a belief that I have, I've, I've always been intrigued with knowing more, I've always been intrigued with knowing what other people think, not that

9:28what somebody might think about me would affect me because you know people like you or they don't like you even on this program. I get emails from people that love this show, they love the topics, they love the fact that I present things that are uncomfortable to think about and they've thought about it themselves and it's helped them to find perspective and and that's the key, that's that's what I'm trying to do but at the same time I've got people that write to me that are so horrifically disgusting in their commentary, their horrific words, their, their thoughts, like you say to yourself, these people need help, right? They need like psychological help, they're, they're so twisted and this is where we are today in America and I hate to repeat myself over and over and over again but you know what they say, you got to say things three times before people get it so this is the 300th time I'm gonna say this but I think it's important to say it is that we used to be as a country you know watching these documentaries, historical documentaries,

10:32reading these autobiographical books, see that's how you say it, trying to understand who we are, where did we come from as a nation, there's things I've learned recently that I didn't fully know nobody taught me and when I look and say why didn't they teach me these things, well because they were not the narrative that was being pushed at the time so I've been in school since the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s all the way through to the year 2000 when I graduated college, I went, I was extracurricular, put it that way, when I got out of high school I didn't have the opportunity to go to college, nor the money so I took courses and courses and courses and over the course of my life I kept pursuing education because I wanted that degree, I wanted a college degree, does it do anything for me in the long run, well I've been turned down for some jobs that

11:33I'm totally qualified for based on my life experience and my job experience but I didn't have that particular piece of paper and I got turned down so I said you know what, let me just get the piece of paper. On top of that, taking two courses a year for many, many years as an adult, I lived the catchphrase for my company, learning is a lifelong endeavor because things change, thoughts change, education changes and I've been there through all of that. Our country has been through a lot of changes and when I look at America and I see where America is today, I think of the America that I grew up in and how we looked at it and this is what I've said, again I'm circling back here and for those who have heard it before, I'm sorry, is that we used to be in two different boats but going down the same river in the same direction. We just had a different way of getting there.

12:34The people on the progressive liberal side, they had their ideas of what we should be doing but we're all going the same way in the same direction and the conservatives had their way of doing things and what we're going the same way. Well in this modern world, not only are we not going in the same direction, we're not even on the same river anymore. We are in such a strange place in our country as to we don't even know who we are as a country. The battle that we're having today between traditional Americans and the progressive left is going, it's the same thing that's going on around the world. We haven't fallen as hard as other places but look at Europe, look at Europe and how they have gone progressive left, socialist, even into communism, though it hasn't been described as communism, they're going pretty far to the left. This open

13:41borders nonsense that we experienced, Europe experienced it as well and it has really decimated many places in Europe. They say, now I haven't been since it happened but they say London is is now no longer the London that we all knew about it. It wasn't you know Pipin Cheerio, it is now a different place completely. It has been inundated with people from different countries who are not going there to assimilate to the English lifestyle, the United Kingdom's type of country. They are not looking at their history, they are there to change the land that they're in and of course I'm talking about the Muslim community that has come in. They're not coming in to assimilate in these European countries. They're coming in to take it over and they're very clear about that. They come out and say, hey, this is England is now a Muslim country and we

14:41will dominate you. Well, that might be true and that might be okay and that might be what the people of the United Kingdom want and the people of France want and the people of Spain might be what they want. But I think it's something that they didn't plan in the United States. We're having the same battle going on, aren't we? When we see that I think 60% the number could be higher, 60% of young people under age 35 think socialism is a better way to go than capitalism. Well, what does that mean? Okay, they have an opinion. They're young people, they're stupid, they don't know. They don't like the reality is in a couple of years I will become irrelevant as an older person. I will become irrelevant. I'll just be in the background. I'll just be an elderly person in the background and the people in the generations before me are losing their

15:42impact. They will become irrelevant and these young people in their teens, 20s, 30s will become the dynamic of our country and those people think socialism is better than capitalism and what brought us to this place. So if I was going to do a monologue and I don't maybe this isn't my monologue, maybe this is just a practice, I don't know. It's to bring out a point is that this country is very different than the one I grew up in. When I grew up in America, I was taught from my family, from my church, from my community that America was the greatest gift to man in the entire world. It was the savior of mankind multiple times and that you should be willing to give your life for your country and as a young person, when you're 10 and 11 and 12, that sounds

16:45great. That's really awesome. As you start to get older, you get 16 and 17. Start to become aware of the world outside of your own home and your parents and the idea of, well wait a minute, give my life for my country, hang on a second and I had that moment. I remember when I had to go register for the selective service to be drafted and I was turning 18 and I remember my mother saying, well we got to go down to register, you got to be registered, you're turning 18 and we went down to the place and I filled out the paperwork and I registered to be drafted and I think that was a moment in my life as an American and as an individual person that I realized the weight of that responsibility, that if my country needed me, I would be like all those people I see on video and in the news and from movie cast in World War II and Vietnam and these, I would be one of them.

17:53I would be one of those people. I'd be on some battlefield somewhere somewhere in the world fighting for my life and for and for my country and was I ready to do that? Well I had to reconcile myself to the fact that at the time I was, I would say I was a little more liberal when I was a teenager. I was a rock and roll guy and I was a liberal and I thought, hey wait a minute, before you send me to war now I was not anti-war. My father was a great man for me and I remember as a young person, he tried to sign up to go to Vietnam when he was like 28 years old and he was married and had kids and he thought it was the right thing to do. How could he not go fight for his country? And I remember having that conversation going, what are you doing? You know, going to fight, you're my dad, you can't go fight in a war and he said every generation and my father was not

18:53a politician, he was not a highly educated man, he was a good and decent man, he said every generation must be prepared to protect their country and as a man that means you may have to go fight for your country and if you are cold you go and I'm saying wow. Now that struck me as a younger person, as a somebody who saw the world probably through the progressive left wing eyesight, just being a young person in an age of abundance, right? Go back and listen to my other programs, I talk about abundance and seeing what was going on going, I don't know if I want to do but the more I thought about it, the more it kind of made absolute sense to me, how can I as a man? And this was another thing, we saw the world, we saw the world through understanding who we were in the world and I knew as a young boy growing up I was a man, I wasn't a girl, I wasn't a woman,

19:58I was a man, you know, I was told things like you don't hit girls, you protect the women in your life, this is what you do, you, these were just, these were not optional things, these are the things I was taught and they made sense in my life, you know, as I saw the world as a young person, I said yeah, you know, can these girls get loud, can they get snappy, can they do this and that and do they want to, you know, do they slap people? I saw girls slapping people and the guys would just take the slap and step away, but if a guy slapped it, you'd knock his teeth out, but if a girl did it, no, you don't read, you just, you don't, you don't hit girls, right? It was part of an understanding, an unwritten, an unwritten set of rules that we were taught and when my father said that and they'd of course they didn't take him, he was 28 years old and they had kids and they said to him, well thank you for coming down, we appreciate you want to serve your country, be a good husband, be a good father, be a good citizen and that's how you can help your country.

21:04And I know he was disappointed that he didn't get to go and fight for his country, but he told me the lessons I thought I needed to hear from a man that I respected, right? So I know I'm going far afield here, I know I'm going far afield, I'm trying to bring it all together and that the country that I grew up in was much more based on God at the center, even though my family was not as religious as my personal family is growing up. You know, there was always God, there was a Bible in the house, we respected other people, we went to church on Easter, we went to church on Christmas and we went to all the other things, but we were not a church-going family, although there was a reverence for God that God was real, we just didn't do the church thing. You know, my father worked and it was exhausted on Sunday and he just didn't go,

22:04but I knew other people who did go to church and when I raised my family, my wife and I, we raised our family to go to church on Sunday because we took the lesson we learned from our parents, the religious understanding of what religion is and we said, well, they didn't do it, but we're going to do it, we're going to take our kids to church. I always said, and Kathleen and I always talked about it and we said, you know what, I think we are the last generation, we are the last generation that lived in that world. After that, I think things really started changing, the way people looked at their country. They no longer looked at, hey, I'll go fight for my country because that's the right thing I have to do, maybe. They looked at and they goes, why would I go fight for this country? And this is when the process changed from the default position being,

23:09America is good, America is great, America is unique in the world to, you know, maybe America is not so great. Maybe there's other ways of living that are more fair, that are more just, maybe America is really not that good and you started to see this split in personalities, right? You saw this split and it got worse and worse to the point that it is today. If there's a conflict today, can you imagine these blue-haired, wishy, washy, left-wing, anti-fah nuts joining the army and fighting to the death for their country for you and me? I can't, I don't see it, I don't, I don't see it. We have the equipment, we have the technology, we have the power, and thank God we have the men and women who are red-blooded Americans signing up for the military. But there was a

24:16time when if you needed a bigger pool than that, you could reach out to the population and people would come running to stand up and fight for their country. In World War II, we had 16-year-olds lying saying they were 18 so they could get in there and fight. Do you think, do you think we would have that today? Do you think we would get that today? I don't think we would, I've talked to a lot of these young people, I've had conversations with them and I don't know that they would go running forward to protect their country, that they wouldn't sabotage what their country was doing on the battlefield, that they wouldn't refuse to go, that they wouldn't protest at, you know, to go into the military, I don't know that they would or wouldn't. But I find it to be a completely different world than the world I grew up and I'm trying to understand it, I'm trying to take into account what these people believe and why. But I'm also projecting forward and saying,

25:26can we survive this? Is this survivable with America like this as opposed to the America we had in the past? I don't know, what do you think? What's your thoughts on this? You've been out there, we're all different generations listening to you. I get emails from people in 20, 30, 40, 40, 50, 60, 70s and 80s. So I'm thrilled that you're out there. So let me know, here's my email, get ready, get a pen, get a pencil, get your brain ready. Jay, the letter Jay, Pangaro, P-A-N-G-A-R-O, at America, out loud.News, Jay, Pangaro, and America out loud.News, let me know what you think, give me your opinion on this thing. It's a different world, it's a different America, I think it's still great and I think the patriots, the people who are in the military and the families who support them. I think the majority of Americans, the Trumpers, that they want to be right all the time. The Trumpers would stand up and protect everyone the way traditional

26:29Americans do. But I don't know the progressive lefties would. What do you think? I will be back in a minute, but I really like to hear your opinion on that because that's going to make a difference in this crazy world and how we go forward. This is Dr. Peter McCullough, you know me from America Loud Pulse and the McCullough Report, while I'm inviting you to join me in Nashville, July 2nd, 3rd and 4th, for a truly historic experience in 2026. America Loud Loud news, 250 slash 10, Nashville. I'm calling all patriots to be a part of this unforgettable weekend, packed with inquiring entertainment, incredible fireworks, and nationally recognized speakers who proudly stand for freedom. Together with you and our partners Clear and the Wellness Company, we'll celebrate two major milestones, 250 years of America and 10 years of America out loud news, led by Malcolm out loud. I can't wait to see you there because your presence

27:29matters and you are family. So make history with me and Malcolm. Register now at America Loud Dot News, forward slash Nashville. That's America Loud Dot News, forward slash Nashville. We'll see you there. In just two minutes per day, you could reclaim your health and cut your grocery bill in half with one simple, convenient product. Our Dr. Formulated Green 85 Juice Formula's powerful dose of ultra concentrated essential nutrients stops hunger in its tracks and supplies your cells with what's missing in the grocery store food. Go to chemicalfreebody.com, forward slash out loud today, get nature super multivitamin, green 85, empower your immune system, cut down on your grocery bill, and save 20% on your first order. I'm Doug Evans, author of the Sprout Book, and I'm also a father with a three year old daughter. And that's why we grow sprouts. Did you know that you could take seeds, add water, and get fresh organic vegetables in three to five days

28:32without soil, sunshine, or fertilizer for under a dollar serving? That's the miracle of sprouting. And I want to share that with you. Go to thesproutingcompany.com slash out loud and use the code out loud for a special offer. Oral hygiene hasn't changed in 50 years, but our diet and the way we eat has creating an environment in your mouth for bacteria to wreck havoc on your teeth and gums. For better oral health, get Sprite Dental Defense, an oral care line designed to combat acid creating bacteria. The toothpaste, mouthwashments, and gum all contain xylitol and natural ingredients shown to dramatically improve oral health. Sprite can be found online and at all find natural retailers. Are you struggling with thinning hair? Try roots from the wellness company. This doctor formulated non-oily hydrogel uses seven powerful peptides and key nutrients to nourish your scalp and support visibly thicker healthier hair. Visit twc.health-out loud.

29:36Use code out loud for 20% off your first order. That is twc.health-out loud. Have you been looking for a healthy snack from the go? Well, not all energy bars are soft and sugary. Bear bars are a crunchy, savory bar made from just six simple natural ingredients. Bear bars are plant-based. Organic gluten-free contain six grams of protein and a low temperature dried for a unique crunch. Most energy bars are based on chocolate or fruit and are held together with serps or sweeteners. To learn more just visit bearbar.com slash out loud. All right welcome back everybody. So for the last couple of episodes I've been taking this opportunity to tell you about something that's an opportunity for you to. Now when I talk about emails I get text messages I get, contacts I get from people because the show is really this

30:38show is really growing. It's a good time slot. It's a good time slot Thursday and Friday nights and we've connected with a lot of people. We're talking into the thousands of people who are listening and I heard a long time ago when I first got into you know recording and radio shows and podcast and all that that for every email you get or every letter back in the day they used to write a letter. For every email or every letter that represents 10,000 people that are listening that's just the average person you know they listen to the show they have their opinion. I used to listen to shows I never called in I never wrote I never did anything but I listened to talk radio loyally for years all day long my whole radio was on talk radio I listened to all these different hosts and I learned from all of them. Well we're in that kind of a world today where if I get 5, 6, 7, 8 emails from different people that's amazing that tells me there's a lot of people and

31:44statistically when I ask the production people what's going on they're saying oh yeah you started it out with like 3,000 people 4,000 went to 10 to 20 to 80 to 90 there's a lot of people out there listening to our program and I'm glad you're out there listening so I'd like to hear from you but I do talk about an opportunity an opportunity for us to get together get to meet each other face to face have a conversation have a cocktail enjoy a adult beverage a fine aromatic tobacco product as Rush Limbo used to say but to interact with each other that's the purpose of America out loud interaction between people people who have opinions people have ideas because those are the only things that ever move a society ahead ideas opinions and thoughts so the great Malcolm out loud who created this station 10 years ago created this whole network he says we should do

32:47something for our 10th anniversary we should have a get together where we can get together with listeners and and interact and meet them and and do programs and also and this year he says you know what we're going to combine our 10th anniversary of America out loud with the 250th anniversary of the United States of America our 250th anniversary and we're going to have an amazing conference get together whatever it is you want to call it meeting of the minds we're going to do in Nashville Tennessee July 2nd third and fourth of this coming year now Nashville Tennessee is one of the most amazing cities in our country the history is crazy but what a beautiful city what an amazing place for music and and getting together and we're going to be there America out loud is having our event July 2nd third and fourth in Nashville Tennessee and

33:48yours truly Joe Pangour from the human equation formally from the chasing justice program I'm going to be there I've already booked my tickets book my hotel got my got my situation I'm going to be there and I would like to meet as many of you as I possibly can we can exchange ideas we can have a cocktail cigar together we can agree we can disagree we can have interaction so here's how you can go as well go to the website go to our network website america out loud dot news america out loud dot news go there click on the link and look for Nashville 2025 or I'm sorry it's Nashville I don't have it in front of me you'll see it you'll see it's Nashville click on that and you can get you can get tickets for one day two day all three days four days whatever we're doing there you can go to the different programs the speakers are going to be absolutely amazing speakers that are or fantastic the cocktail party

34:50the fireworks on the rooftop all of this stuff is for us to get together be americans share our heritage and enjoy and celebrate 10 years of america out loud and 250 years of the greatest country that god has ever gifted the planet with so go on there right now america out loud dot news look up Nashville and get your tickets and come on down we would love to see I would love to see it and we can sit on a rooftop in beautiful Nashville in the summer and have a conversation right this is one of the things that I'm really looking forward to all right so my monologue I don't I don't know that I liked how it went I it wasn't focused enough for me you know i'm a guy that likes um I like to have like six talking points about each thing I want to talk about and then I pontificate about them I go on and on a stream of consciousness but I think I will start the

35:50programs from now on with a monologue and I I will do my best to focus them in the future for you so it makes it interesting for you that's why you're listening right because it's interesting so here's some of the things I want to talk about let's let's get into some topical topics um representative swole well let's let's talk about him for a minute is this uh for conservatives this is one of those moments that you sit back and you can't help but smile here's one of these loudmouth left wing lying people that are in politics that you know they're lying you know that they're they're not truthful you know you're making things up they are just they're twisting things and you know it and you see it and they always seem to get away with especially people on the left our friends on the left seem to get away with everything have

36:51we had anybody locked up did anybody get locked up from all the things that we all know were wrong um yeah now we haven't seen a lot of people locked up and that's frustrating to us on the left I mean on the right because when the left is in charge uh they don't play that kind of game they don't take forever to it they just go lock them up they charge them they invite them they go get they send armed officers to your uh to your compound they go through your wife's underwear drawer they come in with uh weapons they tear things up they go to your home they show up at frog men and come out of added a water come into your house with guns and lock you up and take you away if you're a conservative the liberals the democrats they are never having to face uh responsibility for the things they say and do but swallwell this guy who ran his mouth screaming about the Epstein files Epstein he's demanding a release that Epstein files and I thought probably that one of the best

37:56things that he had to say is uh you had these women making these complaints about Trump or whatever and when this guy comes out and goes when you have one person making a comment well maybe there when there's two three or four you know that there's really something that well uh swallwell has like five six seven eight people who have come forward and said he did inappropriate things uh he touched with one woman said she she was sexually assaulted by the sky raped by this guy now whether he did it or didn't do it we'll find out in the course of time but all of these people started coming out his own staffers were coming forward saying this guy did this stuff so much so that he had a drop his bid for governor of california because he was probably the shoe in as the lefty he would have been the governor of california he would have been rewarded for his left wing lying in idiocy progressive beliefs but he had to drop out of that race and he can I'm gonna fight and I'm

38:56gonna do this and then more people can more women came forward claiming hey not not only that but he harassed he did this to the point that he had a drop out of congress now now I gotta be honest with you as a person as a professional in many many different parts of my life I never really rejoice when someone falls from grace because you know what any one of us can fall from grace for for lots of different reason doesn't mean we're all bad people the circumstances can build up and suddenly you're on the outs now if you've done bad things you've got to figure those things are going to catch up with you based on what we've been told by these staffers and these these women who say this kid this guy harassed them and assaulted them what was he thinking how did he go through every single day thinking he was going to get away with this well he has a great

39:57shield and power to get away with this and that being he's a democrat he has a d by his name democrats they don't told this they didn't come out into investigative stories and what these women said they didn't come out into anonymous person said this anonymous person they did none of that until it was too overwhelming that they couldn't they couldn't hide it anymore and they had to come out with it and they kind of got I'm sure they got some idea that he was going to drop out and get away and then of course it was okay to come out with the stories but they didn't do any well who is this woman and she says this happened to her by this representative let's do an expose let's go no they didn't do any that it was a Republican they would have every resource in their facility aimed at a rumor or a something that somebody told somebody some hearsay they would go crazy on it and they would treat it like it's real a wet wear um I don't know the

41:00Russian collusion the trump trump the steel dossier you know they went all in on all that stuff as though it was all real because it was to get trump but on the left you got protection you got protection from scrutiny which ask yourself is that really good right I don't want anybody on either side of the aisle being a person who behaves this way you know I had a wife I have a daughter I have aunts and uncles I have women in my life that I care about and I know when they go out in the workplace they are harassed it happens I mean it's part of the dynamics of humanity doesn't make it right but the reality is I know these people actually have to live with this kind of nonsense and for this guy to try and get away with it any day and he was protected but he's not protected anymore so I wanted to mention representative swole well because he's now dropped

42:01out of congress I think he's leaving congress as well that's actually delightful as a person who watches the scene but as a conservative to watch a left wing person like this I'm going to be polite a left wing person like this have to leave the arena because of his behavior I think it's great absolutely great so what else is going on okay so let's look at some did you pay your taxes this week did you pay your taxes isn't that a great thing to do to pay your taxes don't you love you know this money's taken out of your check and or you have to write a check or whatever it is so first of all I had a conversation with a very left-wing individual the other day and he's very anti taxes he thinks the rich the top 1% should pay everything and everyone else should have a free ride and that's kind of a common thought in the progressive world you

43:03know take from those who have and give it to those who don't have it it's kind of like a twisted Robinhood kind of a story and I'm saying to this guy well listen there are some things that we need government to do we can't just all be our own government right we can't be our own defense our own money systems we can't be our own we can't control the laws from our house so we need government for certain things not for everything but for lots of things we do need government we need the government to be strong we need government to be righteous and fair and of the people this is what makes America so different is that we are you know the government answers to the people well that's the way the founding fathers envisioned it but here's where I'm going to ask you to take some of my thinking from previous shows where I say the default position of humanities to live under tyranny and we say to ourselves do we do we have a completely free life free from government

44:12control threat etc etc and in many ways I guess depending on what you're doing we we don't really get interfered with government very much we we see government on the small scale you go you speed up your street and there's a cop there he's gonna pull you over give you tickets gonna cost you money you drive recklessly you're gonna get in trouble for that you drunk drive they're gonna lock you up because you're a danger to everyone we see government on a small scale the big scale things the military we watch that from afar the Artemis program through NASA we watch that from afar that doesn't really affect all of us other than they take our money to to do it but where do we see government in real time that has control over us threat over us keep us at bay and that's with the taxes when you pay your taxes April 15th traditionally is the day the last day that you can file you can file from January 1st till April 15th if you file after that the government's gonna

45:16penalize you they're going to maybe give you a fine give you a reprimand give you a letter they're gonna scare the hell out of you and the IRS has teeth they have real teeth they can come to your life in middle America wherever you are if you owe money you didn't pay boom they will put a lock on your paycheck you'll be a line item deduction out of your paycheck to pay those taxes you will pay them uh the IRS is very very powerful they are are the one agency that basically says there's no due process here if we say you're wrong you're wrong if we say you owe money you owe that money and we're gonna charge you penalties and fines and and everything for being for every day that's your late now it's easy to take a negative stance on the IRS I'm a taxpayer I'm a regular person I've paid taxes my whole life and I agree we have to fund our government we do if we don't fund

46:20our government it falls apart we need a military we need laws we need you know we need all the things that government should provide um but I look at that the IRS and I say you know they're what a powerful agency they come in and say well we think you're wrong and we're putting a we're putting a grab on your paycheck how do you fight that you can't fight that they're gonna take that money sure you can get a hearing you can talk to somebody but do you think you're gonna win you're not gonna win this is where we can feel government right in our faces breathing down our next so this week we've reached uh April 15th if you haven't filed I think they they give us a pretty good break you can file an extension you know I couldn't get my paperwork together I couldn't get my documents in order I didn't have time right and that's all legitimate um that's all legitimate because you lose a document you can't find a document you don't have a record you know etc etc

47:22so you have an additional six months to file but you have to pay your taxes on April 15th so what are you supposed to do what are you supposed to anticipate how much do I think I'm gonna oh and how do you do that you look at the year before what is my life substantially the same as it was last year how much did I pay or how much did I get back well if you got money back you don't have to pay nothing because you got money back but if you did um have to pay how much did you pay you're supposed to send that much in I just find it interesting in that how powerful this agency is that one of the things we've seen come up is IRS staffing is down 25% we have lost 17,000 full-time IRS employees eight thousand I believe were due to cuts in personnel and then the rest were people who just decided to take early retirement to get their pension and get out before the government

48:26changed anymore so we're down 17,000 people to provide services and then there's an additional 5,000 people that do seasonal work they come in for tax season January to April or so and they help fill out the paperwork and make sure everything is done right and they're down which they're now they're saying there could be delays there could be delays in finishing up your tax return you got it in on April 10th you might not get it done until May 10th a month and then it could be another three four weeks till you get your refund check and you say to yourself well that this is where you see real government in your life in your face through the IRS and taxation so what what I always did in the last couple of years is I decided to pay more than I thought I would need to pay and I don't like giving the government money and letting them hold it interest-free but at the same time

49:26I hated getting that letter saying hey thanks for filing you owe us $6,000 and you have to write a check for $6,000 I hated that so it's kind of a forced savings right so I just pretty much doubled up on everything that I was supposed to pay so I don't have to deal with that anymore and now we get that money you get that money back and it's like okay that's vacation money maybe that's a project around your house either way these lowering the staffing can slow that whole process down now I I have been independent as an individual I've been with a good job for the last 40 years of my life the return my tax return filed and then you know if I get a check that check didn't really change my life I wasn't counting on that check for my daily bills that check was always a project around my house or a little vacation with my wife and kids or into the savings account it didn't it didn't

50:32make a huge difference in my life but I know for some people it does I have friends that they're going to get $3,000 back that $3,000 is a lot of money for them and to have it slowed down because the system is goofed up that's inappropriate and why is the system slowed down well there was people say it's doge doge and Elon Musk and that's why well Elon Musk performed a function that is necessary our government is bloated with people bloated with personnel I'll tell you a quick story a friend of mine was a private sector guy an engineer private sector guy and he worked in the private sector and made good money and did a good job and they were worried the cost of every project and how to do it the most efficient way and that's what this guy did well he had an opportunity the company that he was with sold closed the company and he had an

51:33opportunity to go to the federal government as an engineer and he took the job okay this looks good they're paying a good salary it's reasonable distance let me go see and he went in and he starts at a very very big facility a huge federal facility and he's one of multiple engineers and the first thing he told me goes I get there and I see all these engineers people have my degree that if my skill set etc and you find out that there's probably 25% too many people here to do the work that's available they just like a 25% more personnel than they need and I said really he goes yeah they redundancy of people and they got people everyone's got you know out of an eight-hour day you got four and a half hours worth of work maybe the rest of the time you're just fiddling around he goes it's really inefficient and then he had to do a job he had to lay some plastic pipe underground pipe had to go about a mile at this facility and they had to dig it up put down the

52:34pipe and then cover it in blue stone you know the blue stone you see in driveways for you know whatever purpose they use that and then cover it up and put the road back and he saw they were paying like a thousand dollars a tonne for the blue stone and he says I just did a project at my last employer we paid five dollars a tonne and I know who to get that from so he went to his boss he went to the leader of the organization that he was working with he goes hey listen they're expending three million dollars for blue stone we can do it for five hundred thousand I know who to call we make a phone call right now it's five hundred thousand we saved two and a half million and then the pipe you're getting piped it's this much money I know where to get it over and the guy looked at him and said hey that's great you know you you are really an efficient awesome kind of guy let me give you a piece of advice here in the federal government swim in your own lane look at the plans figure out the plans don't worry about what everything costs that's somebody else's job that's not your job your job is not to worry about what it costs your job is to just figure out your part of the puzzle and everyone else does theirs

53:38and my friend walked away from this going if this is on that small scale imagine the big scale so that's why Elon and what he did coming through and saying we can cut back on people was important now I think when they cut back on eight thousand people and I don't know that it was a doge requirement or suggestion but they cut back on eight thousand people from the internal revenue revenue service and then another bunch of thousands of people decided to take their pension early they saw it coming why would I what I want to get laid off I'll take my pension and get out of here that put us in a deficit and that's going to slow everything down so sometimes this works out and sometimes it doesn't but I thought it was interesting to mention because it is tax time we have to pay our taxes would it be simple if we went to like a flat tax everybody pays ten percent you deduct your house you deduct your family expenses and then you pay ten percent on your income across the board whether you're a billionaire or a guy you a girl you know making fifty thousand you pay ten percent of your income on a one piece of paper I see that as being

54:44probably the best way to go efficient all right I had other stuff on here I want to talk about but I think real quick I'm going to cover something that's been in the news and it's going to be a minute's worth recently we saw our congress debating whether or not they should renew the FISA act the FISA act is a law that came into effect after nine eleven after we were bombed by terrorists we were attacked by terrorists and the FISA law dictates how our federal law enforcement can listen to people's phones that can intercept their text messages that can look at their communications from foreign citizens and that information coming into America so that we know what are they talking about then if we find that they're talking to people here in America about doing bad things right at that point we can listen in if it's about this foreign person

55:46wanting to do something connecting with terrorist cells that might be in our country interesting but what we saw with the Biden administration is that they bastardized this law they use the FISA act and the FISA courts to get warrants to listen into their political enemies they listened into the Trump administration they lied to the judges so that they could wire tap and listen into what's going on this is horrific and it really has never been addressed appropriately this is one of those things we're conservatives going hey what happened with this imagine if we did this to the liberals they would be you know be be crazy so the FISA is coming up for renewal and I think it should be renewed but I think we have to have some strict limits on what information is released and to who and why all right I'm glad I got to talk about that I have many more things here on my list but our time is up my friends I'll see you tomorrow and I join us again here on the human equation