Life Liberty and the Pursuit
Welcome to the Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit podcast. Come join Eric and Matt who are freedom-loving, meat-eating, gun-shooting American guys as they discuss a broad spectrum of topics ranging from States' rights, culture, and the 2nd Amendment to scotch, bourbon, and cigars. Eric & Matt are both former US Army combat veterans who served together while deployed to Iraq during OIF III. Eric is most notable for his YouTube channel Iraqveteran8888 which has over 2.75 million subscribers currently as well as his outspoken and no-compromise stance regarding the 2nd amendment. Matt, founded Ballistic Ink, a branding and merchandising company that serviced 2A content creators and the firearms industry. He also is a partner of Alliance jiujitsu Roswell located in Roswell GA and trains daily and competes regularly. He is very passionate about the 2nd amendment and freedom. Come along for the ride!
Life Liberty and the Pursuit
LLP Ep131: America's Fetish With War
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The dollar isn't backed by gold anymore—it's backed by America's ability to wage war. This sobering reality forms the foundation of our deep dive into what we've termed "America's fetish with war" and how it shapes our economy, society, and global standing.
Taking you through America's near-constant state of conflict since World War II, we trace how our national identity has become inextricably linked to military power. From Korea to Vietnam, the Middle East and beyond, America has spent far more time at war than at peace. But why? The answer lies in the uncomfortable reality of how our economy functions—war is profitable for those at the top while ordinary Americans struggle.
We explore the military-industrial complex as not just a warning from Eisenhower but as the fundamental business model of modern America. When we send "aid" to countries like Ukraine, that money largely flows to American defense contractors who then donate to political campaigns, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that demands perpetual conflict. Meanwhile, approximately 17% of Americans report not having enough food to eat.
The influence of foreign lobbying groups raises further questions about American sovereignty. When politicians receive substantial donations from organizations like AIPAC, whose interests are they truly serving? And why are these legitimate questions so often met with character attacks rather than substantive debate?
As you listen, consider the words of Smedley Butler: "War is a racket." Whether you're a veteran, a patriot, or simply someone concerned about America's future, this episode challenges you to question whether our national addiction to conflict serves the American people or merely enriches those who profit from bloodshed. Subscribe now and join the conversation about what America could be if we redirected our immense resources toward prosperity rather than perpetual war.
Welcome back everybody. This is Eric and Matt, and this is Life, Liberty and the Pursuit, your beacon of freedom and the American way of life. Tune in every Monday for a new episode as we dive into the world of liberty and what makes our country great. All right, everybody, Welcome back. This is Eric and Matt, here with Life, Liberty and the Pursuit, your home for all things, free in a world gone completely mad and insane. Here we are.
Speaker 2:Some would even say your beacon of freedom, perhaps.
Speaker 1:Maybe, maybe not, but here we are just the same and I appreciate all of your continued support. We've really been enjoying the podcast and I want to do a little bit of housekeeping as well and just let you know Some of you tuned into the main channel there, irac Veteran 8888. Got a lot of content on the way. I've been a little bit uh busy doing some work on the house, handling some things, but uh, I've got a heck of a lot of content coming up on that front as well. So stay tuned for that. And today's episode here on LOP, we're going to be talking about America's fetish with war. Oh boy, we're going to go down a very deep and dark rabbit hole.
Speaker 1:And I hope that you'll join us for this departure into debauchery.
Speaker 1:I mean look, I get it, but there's some things we're going to talk about that might be unsettling for some and maybe even unsettling for ourselves. We're going to talk a little bit about the way the economy is right now, a few things like that. So you know, it's going to be a very deep discussion. It'll be a lot of fun. So we're going to get into this and it's been a great week. Everything's coming together, no major complaints here. But you know, matt suggested this subject matter and I thought, wow, this is going to be an interesting one to tackle.
Speaker 1:When we talk about America's fetish with war, it's a subject matter that brings a lot of things to mind. I mean, when we think about the dollar as a currency, it really is backed up by our ability to carry out violence, and I know that's a hard thing to accept. You know, it's been years since we gotten off the gold standard, you know, and and now it's like we jokingly call the dollar the war buck, call it war bucks. You know, it's just crazy to think that. You know, we have a very powerful military, a very capable, technologically advanced military with probably the best capabilities to fight anywhere in the world at any time of anyone, which gives us certainly an interesting playing field to operate from. What are some of America's other advantages that we have? Well, one we have history and a heritage of brave fighting men who win wars. I mean, we may not always win, but we dang sure fight and it's going to change something, right. So we have a long history of military service and it goes back a long way. You know we have a very rich military culture, you know. So it is ingrained in our society. We support military and all that sort of thing, and you know, very patriotic Patriotism is strongly ingrained into American culture. So therefore, military service is strongly ingrained into military culture.
Speaker 1:Some of the other things that we have at our advantage as a country is our geographical isolation. We're very strategically isolated, which gives us the ability to pretty much pick on anybody we want, as much as we want. Really, short of something very drastic, there's not a heck of a lot they can do about it Economically. We've got a lot of pokers and a lot of fires. So as a country, we also have a lot at stake in terms of having many a hand and many a pot and many a coin, changing many a pocket, and that has a tendency to greatly affect our you know relationships that we have with various countries in terms of our diplomatic relations with certain countries.
Speaker 1:A lot of countries rely on us for a wide variety of different things, such as food and resources. We rely on other countries, so there's sort of a mutual trade that allows us all to function as a civilized society. So there's all these things in play that make America what it is everything from our culture of service to our culture of violence, our ability to carry out violence, and that violence and that sort of trade minutia that we go through, and all of the pockets that we're in and all of the battlefields that we're on, put us in a very unique advantage for our currency to pretty much be a currency of dealing death. As much as it's hard to say and it's difficult to come to that conclusion, that's really what we are as a country. We we just take what we want, I guess, and we just do what we want.
Speaker 2:Well, I would agree, that's and that's the way that it's been since the beginning. That's how the country was formed. You know we. We took land essentially, um yeah, via the military, um. You know the. The country was unified by war, um and then.
Speaker 2:So I would agree. I think that and it is kind of a hard subject to discuss because you're, you know, as a, as a country, we are, you know, very patriotic. I have a strong sense of patriotism, you know, for my country, I fought for my country. I am very proud to be an American and there's no other place in this world I would want to be, to be. But we can't deny the way that war, as a country's culture, has shaped America. I can't name any other country that has been in as many conflicts as the USA. Sure, there's countries that have been in constant conflict, like one singular conflict. So an example would be North and South Korea and America, technically still at war since 1955. You know, that's just. They never stopped it. It's been a DMZ. They're currently at war, sure, it's not an active kinetic battlefield, but they're still at war.
Speaker 2:You could say that's true. America has literally been in and out of armed conflicts across the globe for the last 40 years, 20 years of which was solely in the Middle East. Prior to that, you had let's just go down the list. All right, we had, you know, obviously World War II. Now I'm going to use World War II because that's literally the farthest back I can reach. That's relevant to-.
Speaker 1:People that are still alive.
Speaker 2:Yes, so you had World War II, all right, boom, and that very much in and of itself, bombing of Pearl Harbor. America wasn't going to get involved. I give credit where credit is due. America as a country said that doesn't pertain to us. They made the decision to stay out. They asked for help. We said no way. Because of what you just said, eric. We're very isolated. We're in a good place. It's very hard to to get to us and we're not going to go out of our way all the way to europe. That's a european issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, good old japan and we came here to not be europeans yeah and uh, good old japan effed around and found out and then brought us into the war. We didn't have a choice. It's like that cartoon where the sharks and the fish he was like, well, I wasn't going to eat you, but then you punched me, so now I have to eat you. So then America went over there, handled business All right. World War II over Economy was kind of on the up and up. During World War II you could say the economy was good, that everybody was working, they were bringing women, and that was when the whole rosie, the riveter thing came along. You had tons of women entering the industrial workforce. Um, we were producing things here, yes, and industry was good, you had manufacturing good, and then it started to decline over time. Do, do, do, do, do. America got, you know, got good to us things. We started outsourcing a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:Next thing you know economies in shambles. We need, we need an uplift. What happens when you, when the economy needs an uplift, go to war? What happens? What was the next war? Vietnam or korea? Korea was the next war, vietnam or Korea? Korea was the next war, and that was a three or four year war. Same thing Needed. The economy was good, needed to uplift the economy. You know, technically the war is still going, but they armed, they signed a ceasefire. All right, economies down.
Speaker 2:That was 1955. All right, 1955. All right, 1955. Now what's the next war? Vietnam, the Nam? Yeah, that was literally like 10 years later, not even All right. So how you go from World War II to Korea, we can't even just chill for 10 years. Yeah, all right, boom, right back into it. I know vietnam, vietnam. We lose a lot of lives, a lot of americans. They drafted people like come on, man, that's like you're just drafting random individuals to force them to fight. We learned a lot from that, by the way. So, yeah, then you had vietnam. Vietnam ended. We had a little bit of time there between the 70s and the 80s. We had a cold war. That happened, spent a lot of money on the cold war. Then you had desert storm, desert shield in the 90s and then getting on into the Middle Eastern conflict.
Speaker 2:That was the turning point. What was it 1993 or 1994.
Speaker 1:Pretty much been constant turmoil since.
Speaker 2:And ever since we got into the Middle East man, that's where we've been, and we just finished that a few years ago. You could even say we're still going, because there's active operations going on in Syria and Africa, haiti, somalia and in places that you'll never know about.
Speaker 1:Of course, there's always going to be some regime change, and I think that, before we get too much further, I do want to give a shout out to today's sponsor of today's show, and that's my Patriot Supply. This summer isn't just hot, it's historic. Flash flood warnings are at a 40-year high and it's not slowing down. Towns underwater, roads washed out and in every crisis zone the same thing Crowds standing in line, waiting.
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Speaker 1:For sure. So, kind of getting back to the subject matter at hand, when we're talking about all these conflicts we've been in, you know, you, you lay out this, you lay out this timeline that when you start to look at it you go, wow, like we've been at war way longer than we've been at peace. Oh, a hundred percent. When we look at the entire bosom of human existence, right as far back as we can go for recorded human history, even right, peace is rare. In that story, humans, it's like we've always been constantly violent and at war and, you know, taking the resources we want and grabbing things by the horns. You know, and is that to say that that's more about how the human condition really is? Like that we're just meant to fight each other.
Speaker 1:You know, again, like I don't want to go down a crazy rabbit hole, I mean we've got a long time to talk here but the truth is, when you're looking at you know people go, oh well, the government just released information about, you know, extraterrestrial life and UFOs. And oh, we now know that UFOs might actually be a thing like actual, like aliens or some intelligent life somewhere else. And what I always kind of go back to I think well, if that were true, and if there were some intelligent life out there that was smart enough to know how to get here and smart enough to know who we are and who we aren't, I think the more plausible question at hand is they know who we are? Were floating around in space and saw a bunch of little primates on a rock blowing each other up and shooting each other and killing each other and doing things in the name of god knows what? You'd probably want to keep your distance too, wouldn't you? So it's like you know, would we want to be friends with us?
Speaker 1:I mean that's if you look at earth as an entity and you know in their mind, if you land on a, you're going to inevitably have to come in contact with some of all of them. If most of them are a pain in the butt, you probably just consider that place dangerous to stop at right. It's kind of like rolling your windows up, going through space. Like you know, they don't want nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2:Lock the doors when you drop by the planet. Yeah, yeah, they're going to lock the door on the spaceship on the way Bill.
Speaker 1:We're passing by Earth, Lock the doors, kids I mean so is that to say that America is just an extension of the greater? You know, human struggle? And we're just honest about it and we just do what's necessary and you know, sometimes the ends justify the means. Is that what it is, or has it become something more darker and sinister? And sometimes you have to kind of look at it from that view, like maybe it is darker and sinister If the world's technology, it's the technology we have available to us now.
Speaker 1:We have nuclear power that can provide clean, cheap power to a lot of people all around the world. We have desalination facilities that can have clean drinking water for everybody. When you think about the technology we have and how easy it can actually make for people on planet Earth to live well and I'm not trying to be some hippie here, I'm just saying yeah, obviously that costs money to set all that up. That money has to come from somewhere. I'm not saying it's kumbaya and it's just some socialist utopia, not what I'm saying. But I'm saying that if you have the means to solve a problem that can prevent conflict and you choose not to, then what are you really trying to accomplish with that conflict?
Speaker 1:Yeah, smedley Butler said war is a racket. Right, he's right, war is a racket, war is a business. War is profitable. And when a country builds their identity and their currency and their trading tendencies and their defensive position, and everything they do as a country is built upon their ability to carry out war, well then war is the product. We don't have to manufacture anything, we don't have to have the steel mills open again, we don't have to have. You know, the entire country can be a concrete jungle that's devoid of life. It doesn't matter, because our product is our ability to carry out violence on the world stage. That is our product, and I think it goes to speak volumes about our foreign policy, the way that we've handled things. I mean the founding fathers, george Washington himself, said that we should avoid, we should have alliances with the outside world, but we should only trade with them. We should avoid having any sort of you know, we shouldn't really be involved with the outside world other than trade. I agree with that. We've come a long way from.
Speaker 1:That country has become now, in terms of the military industrial complex and all the mechanisms within it, and therein has become much more of a money-making um, you know apparatus and a business apparatus, rather than simply just providing for the defense of the common good right. The only job the government actually has in terms of what the constitution says is to provide for the common defense. That's it. There's never supposed to be all this taxation and all this crazy crap and income taxes and all these crazy taxes. But what it's become is the government has gotten so good at violence, and violence has become their product, that they they then turn that violence inward and they say, well, we're unstoppable, we've got the ultimate Gestapo force that'll do anything. We say We've got the heaviest, craziest military. Well then we'll turn that in on our own people and we'll say, well, we're going to have these crazy damning taxes, we're going to have crazy inflation, we're going to have fractional banking, we're going to have usury, we're going to allow all the things that we left Europe to escape from, we're going to allow that into our back door. And well, we're so powerful and our product is violence. No one will oppose us. The people will just pay what we say to pay and they won't say a word about it. And I think that's where we're at.
Speaker 1:We've reached a very dangerous state of affairs where, you know, the state wishes to have a monopoly on violence. We've seen a lot of situations where you know they try to go after guns all the time. There's all the anti-gun politicians out here trying to take your guns away. You know why would they do that? What real reason. If our language is violence, if our product is violence, then why in the world would you not want your country to be capable of violence? If you're geographically isolated, matt and someone were to, let's just say, invade, wouldn't you want every swinging dick to have a gun? Absolutely I do. But they don't see it that way because they see you as the threat. They see you as a potential threat to their, to usurping, their ability to have a monopoly on violence against you, the citizen, and to have all these messed up, drastic life fees that they've decided to assess on you under force of, ultimately, the same force that they carry out against the world.
Speaker 1:It's true when you come to that conclusion you almost kind of hate your government, I mean and that's the role of the people.
Speaker 2:That's why the second amendment exists is so that if the government becomes tyrannical, you have a way to reset, for lack of a better terms. Oh, the tree of liberty must be watered, and all that good stuff. All of that aside, the people that made the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, were very smart in the way that they did it and they tried to put fail-safes in place because they know, they knew that, as the saying goes, that power corrupts ultimately, or something like that. They know that those that are in power won't let go, or they don't want to, they don't have a reason to. Amendment puts in place a way that the people have a way to encourage those that are in government to to listen to.
Speaker 2:To go back to what you said, Eric, about you know the whole manufacturing of of war. It made me think, just real briefly, of whole Israel-Palestine dynamic that's going on and the whole manufacturing part, and it has nothing to do with what you think it does. There was a report put out by the doctors that are going over there to volunteer to help and they're going into Palestine to help the men, women and children that are injured. Obviously there's collateral damage there and the doctors said something interesting they will only allow you to bring seven pounds of food in per person. So if you're a doctor and you're going in to help, you're only allowed to bring in seven pounds of food, and I thought that's funny. What's the purpose of that? Then these doctors are having to like weigh out their food. So they're weighing out like protein bars and snacks and like, once you hit that seven pound limit, that's it, that's all you can bring.
Speaker 2:So I just thought that was really interesting, because you're always hearing reports of you know, food being like mishandled, like food aid packages being, like you know, stolen and being hijacked and in a way, you can see that being kind of like that manufactured process of like hey, if you're going to come help, you can only bring in seven pounds of food, that's just enough for you. And then they're having report. The doctors are literally saying, hey, we're trying to do surgery, but we're hungry because they don't have enough to eat. So they're kind of manufacturing this scenario of like, hey, the doctors are there to help, but they're hungry, they can't stay that long, you can only stay for a little bit, because, hey, your body can only function so long on malnourishment, even as a doctor.
Speaker 1:A doctor has to be well-fed. I mean, you got to be capable.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Then you start seeing like the hey, all right, so how much of this is actually manufactured? That's just the way war is, even with the US, a lot of these stuff. I know we were talking about a little bit. When the economy is down, they have to create these scenarios so that companies can generate money. The companies are generating money. They're paying taxes. They're paying the government, the government's paying them. You know?
Speaker 1:KBR Halliburton all kinds of these companies Kellogg, brown and Root now look. So I'm going to be very pragmatic here in this assessment. I love my country more than anything in this world. I don't want anybody to think that I've got some ill will towards anyone who's involved in the military industrial complex. There's a lot of good people out there that work for these companies. They're just making products and they have a job, just like anyone else. I'm going to try to be very straightforward and pragmatic when I look at the way I'm going to make this assessment.
Speaker 1:But let's take, for instance, this money we send to Ukraine for the war. Okay, on one end, this is me being fair, this is me being a strategist, this is me being the president. Whatever, hey, put me in a position of power and give me the keys and say drive the ship to the best of your ability. This is just me being as open-minded as I possibly can be, even though, yeah, I have an opinion about what we should do or not do more, about what we shouldn't do. I don't think we should be sending them a damn dime. But I'm trying to be pragmatic here.
Speaker 1:Two or three things are essentially accomplished in this proxy. So America has been involved in proxy wars. And if you don't know what that is, it means, hey, our hands are in the pot. We're sending labor materials. We're sending, you know, pretty much everything except soldiers to this fight and we're sort of the pocket man. You know, you provide the soldiers, you provide the labor. We're going to give you the tools to do the job. We're going to help you, we, you provide the labor. We're going to give you the tools to do the job. We're going to help you. We're going to provide logistics, support, any number of other things, maybe even training, anything but actually having boots on the ground in the trenches doing the fighting. That's what a proxy war is, and a proxy war is essentially an investment. Right Like you're supporting this country in the name that, yes, maybe some return will come of it.
Speaker 2:Mineral rights.
Speaker 1:They win the war. You get mineral rights, oil drilling rights, export rights for grain and food. You know, because Ukraine is a breadbasket, Europe is this huge farm. Basically, I mean Ukraine as a country is a very valuable piece of dirt.
Speaker 2:And interest rates on loans that we've given them for the summer Right.
Speaker 1:I mean, you have to the west of Ukraine. You have a very mountainous area and it essentially goes out into this just big open field before you get to Russia, and that's why the Germans had so much of a hard time in World War II. Now, when they let that dam go in Ukraine, all right, and it flushed out a whole bunch of crap in that basin or whatever, it dug up a whole bunch of old fighting positions and what do you think? Was there? Nazi helmets and Nazi soldiers, I mean. So they've been fighting over this piece of dirt for some time.
Speaker 1:This isn't anything new, and I think people seem to get it in their head that, well, russia went in and had this act of aggression. Yeah, they did, but these sons of bitches have been at each other's throats since 2016. This isn't anything new. It just it's what the media decides to go. Here's your new new. Here you go and they push it to you. And now it's in the forefront because we're involved in it.
Speaker 1:Again, looking at this pragmatically, pragmatically, if you consider Russia to be some great geopolitical enemy, would you rather commit American forces to fight them or commit someone else's kids to do it? American forces to fight them or commit someone else's kids to do it Again, I don't agree with it, but I'm just trying to look at it as open-minded as I can. I'm trying to put myself in the mindset of what our leaders may be thinking. Well, obviously, if we can still have the financial gain of greasing the palms, of greasing the wheels, and then not have to lose any american lives, which would would be a very unpopular thing right now with everything that's going on you imagine how unpopular another war would be right now extremely unpopular. Do you think that all this anti-war protester in vietnam was bad? I think.
Speaker 1:Now there's people. There's people protesting and we're not even involved directly in the war. We're sending whatever aid to Israel. We're sending aid to Ukraine. It's just aid. It's like things that we're providing war implements. Now again, getting to bullet point number two. Bullet point number one is we don't have any skin in the game in terms of having American lives at direct risk. Two okay, are we actually just sending sackfuls of money to them or are we sending them weapons? A lot of it is sending weapons.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Who's making the weapons?
Speaker 2:American companies.
Speaker 1:We are.
Speaker 2:Yep Raytheon. So is the money really going over there?
Speaker 1:Who's making the weapons American Company? We are Yep Raytheon. So is the money really going over there? I mean, someone at Raytheon is doing well, someone at Boeing is doing well.
Speaker 2:Whoever I guess Raytheon's the ones making all the artillery shells. They do a lot of missiles like ballistics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean someone's making artillery shells Yep. Someone's making missiles. Someone's making missiles, someone's making planes, someone's making sighting systems, someone's making guns, someone's making ammo hey, those people are doing well. Someone is getting paid.
Speaker 1:Now is that to say at some greater level, that are the politicians palms getting greased as well? Now, could that become a conflict of interest, where these politicians are voting, or deciding, rather, what aid to send, where and where to allocate this, where to allocate that? Is that to say that there's not some special arrangement that's been made? You know, oh, hey, buy these stocks, wink, wink. And I think that's where Americans have a disconnect with what's going on, with these situations. It's not that the end result of these proxies are bad for America, but it's the optics, and I think the optics have never been more visible to average Americans on a day-to-day basis than they are now. And I think it's not even so much that the end result is something we can't live with. I think it's that Americans are pissed that these people are all grease in their palms and it just has an air of dishonesty and corruption and ultimately, you know, they have blood on their hands and I think a lot of people morally take issue with us being involved in those sorts of things Like it's blood money to a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Now, logistically, if you're running a country, that you are a leader of a country, well then, look, you know you got to do what you got to do Either survive two more generations, three more generations, or die, die off. It's like those kinds of decisions have to be made by somebody you know and eventually someone has to decide that it's going to be someone else's kids instead of ours, and that's not an easy decision to make. So I'm trying to be pragmatic. I have my views, I have my opinion on what we should do. I have my morals and my principles telling me, hey, what we should do versus what we shouldn't. I'm trying to be pragmatic and look at this just in a very open-minded way of why would our future as a country be so ingrained in warfare and why is it so important to us? It seems to be continuously important.
Speaker 2:I would say that it's because it's something that we're very, very good at. Because of the last 40 years of being at war or in conflict, I can say without a doubt we are the best fighting force when it comes to being able to deploy a very large amount of troops overseas. What they did I will say what they did in the Middle East was absolutely insane. The level of which you can get that much infrastructure deployed was crazy. They put the concrete barriers up, they put the HESCOs up. They built dude. We would go to some of these uh bases in Iraq and they would have full blown PXs like Walmart super centers where you can walk in and it's like a actual building in the middle of a desert. The way that you can get so many troops over there that fast.
Speaker 2:The infrastructure power I mean we talk about KBR and a lot of these companies it's a double-edged sword, because I did appreciate having a hot shower whenever we got one. I did appreciate having laundry service, a hot meal yeah, I appreciate being able to walk into a defect whenever we were on a base that you know had a nice defect and being able to get a meal. Those were good things. Now I don't know how much they pay. I think there was estimates of where they were just paying, like the government was paying astronomical amounts of money for this. But at the same time you're in the middle of the desert and you're able to drop your laundry off and pick it up the next day and it's like folded, starched, pressed. I'm like, hey, I got a clean uniform. I'm not stuck in this salty, stained uniform for the next week.
Speaker 1:Imagine the logistics that go in to having a Taco Bell or KFC. I mean, like some posts would have Taco Bell. I think it was Camp. Adder we would go there and they having a Taco Bell yeah. Or a KFC. I mean, like some posts would have Taco Bell yeah. I think it was Camp Adder. We would go there and they'd have Taco Bell and of course people get off their stick. The first thing sons of bitches do is go to that Taco Bell They'd be lying.
Speaker 1:I mean, like everybody want a Taco Bell, but imagine the logistics of making a Taco Bell in the middle of that place, the Burger King and selling it for the price of a Taco Bell. I guarantee you that ain't the real price. They're subsidizing the cost of that Taco Bell. It's more for morale at that point.
Speaker 2:That's what it was.
Speaker 1:It was morale when you look at it from that perspective and you understand it. At that greater perspective, you then become a master of war when you realize that war is not about who is the bigger badass. War is about who commands the logistics. Logistics do not win wars, logistics is war. Yep, whoever has the best logistics in place is absolutely going to be pressed to have the better advantage, especially in modern war. I mean, oh my God, don't even get me started on drones.
Speaker 2:Those drones are some royally scary shit it is. And just to back up real quick, there is nobody better at logistics in the war than America. They've proven it time and time again Because, think about it, every single war we've been in we've had to deploy. We've never fought outside of our civil war, we've never fought on our own land. We've had literally deploy hundreds of thousands of personnel to other countries and do so in a very rapid rate.
Speaker 1:Nobody does it better than us.
Speaker 2:Nobody, nobody. And that's unfortunately the reason that America keeps doing it is because we're so good at it and we make it look easy, like we, we. I think, wow, what was it? There was, there was, I think it was like even Russia and ukraine. They can't even get vehicles across a border on land as fast as we can get them in the air and like dropped into another country. It's crazy, isn't that wild. We made it look so easy that other countries try it and they realize how hard it is and they go holy crap, it's hard fighting a war, yeah, yeah, when you're not pract, when you're not well versed in it and napoleon bonaparte said that an army marches on its stomach.
Speaker 1:And we always go back. We say the same beans and bullets. You've got to be able to keep up with the apparatus of war. And you know, yeah, you can put a bunch of dicks in one place, but if you can't feed them, clothe them, heal them when they're sick, help them when they're hurt, keep their guns running, keep their equipment running, keep fuel running, all that, all of the minutia of war, what actually allows us to handle the logistics? What do you got? You have a liability.
Speaker 1:And when we look at the late stages of the Roman Empire, it was the same thing. The Roman Empire was stretched so thin and soldiers just started abandoning their posts. They were without pay, without clothing and weapons, without food, without shelter, like the hell with it Going to go home or do whatever. Because eventually things got to a point where people woke up and Rome just wasn't Rome anymore and they're like well, I guess, so I guess we're hanging it up Like one day it just kind of flipped the switch.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't want to say that America is in a similar phase of like the late stages of the Roman Empire. I don't really feel like we're at that. I think we're at the danger of becoming to that point where we see the bleeding of the coffers. You know there's so much bleeding of the coffers going on, there's so much corruption and spending and we're spending money we don't have and we're continuing to kick that can fiscally down the road. And I suppose that's a good way to sort of segue into the way the economy is right now and the economy and our overall financial situation as a country. And when I say as a country, okay, yes, the amount of debt that the country actually has.
Speaker 1:And let's just say what money is worth now, what the dollar is worth, the buying power of the dollar, not really what it's worth, because on paper a dollar is a dollar, but a dollar isn't a dollar. Now, is it Matt? I mean a dollar is only worth what it's buying power, what it can actually do, what can you buy with it, what can you convert that dollar into? It's a deep rabbit hole and I'm not going to claim to be the most well-versed economist in the world. I will never claim to be the most well-versed war expert in the world, but I don't think it takes an expert to look at what goes on a daily basis in everyone's everyday life.
Speaker 1:And when you turn on the news and the government, especially people in the government, isn't it funny how you turn on Fox News and it's people from the government Like well, wait a minute. And they all want to talk about, oh, the economy's booming, it's doing this, you know? The whatever index is up, amount of points, stock markets Well, yeah, when the stock market is doing well, it just means all of y'all are doing well.
Speaker 2:That's really the end, all do all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, the stocks and things like that, all of the trading being up might be an indication of the economy doing well. But yeah, that's for the top, the top. What about the everyday person who's just struggling to make ends meet? Is the economy good for them? Are things really doing well for them?
Speaker 2:I would say no, it's rough man. And the people that control the economy and I use that term control loosely, it's really the people that manipulate and dictate the economy are the ones that are in office right now, and it's funny that you mentioned about you know, those that are in power are kind of dictating, um, where the economy goes as well, and, not to sound cliche, but it kind of reminds me of that movie 300, um, so, like america's army we've become and this has nothing to do with like the whole, like spartan like thing. No, it's just like. It's just a, I guess, a metaphor. America has become so good at war that we can kind of do what we want. We feel like we can do what we want and for, for all intents and purposes, we can, um, and then, like you know, when another country says, hey, if we, you know, and then that saying of that King Leonidas is like if, like, if you do, it'll be interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But on the movie 300, it was about a corrupt senator and he's kind of pushing an agenda of like what he wants and that's how I feel it's going down right now. There's a lot of people in office senators, house reps that are pushing an agenda, regardless of what it may be, but there's so many PACs and so many interest groups that are involved that they're feeding money into this apparatus, into this military industrial complex, let's just say, and this money is coming from everywhere. And this really was surprising to me because there's one guy that I keep up with on Facebook that he is a quintessential Democrat. He's a good friend of mine, we are friends of all people here. I don't judge, I don't base my friendship based on your political views.
Speaker 2:I think that people can cohabitate. I think that people can get along and have discourse even though they're not 100% in agreement with how their political beliefs are. But he's always posting stuff and I'm like all right, cool. But he posted something the other day that was very noticeable and I use that term on purpose because it was about a lot of the. It was literally a list of Democrat senators and house reps that took money from um like a israeli, a pack yes dude yeah and like crazy isn't it, dude?
Speaker 2:and it was like dollar amounts, like hey, this, this person took 47 000. This person took, like I'm like 250,000 bucks.
Speaker 1:I'm like you know holy crap.
Speaker 2:These, like senators, are and people are making money off of this right and they're basing their way that they lean and they're basing their messages off of that money and that's that I saw that I was like this is like a movie, like this is crazy right you.
Speaker 1:I'm glad we're going to talk about this. I didn't know if AIPAC was going to come up or not. And look, there's a lot of people that accuse me of many things, and some of those things are true. You know, some of the things that people say about me they're true and sometimes they're not. But I think that also, what tends to go by the wayside with people's opinion about me specifically, is where my intent is, where my heart is. No one ever cares to ask you where your heart is.
Speaker 2:They just assume.
Speaker 1:All they know is their projection of the way they are, and they're going to use that projection to just paint you. And that's a Marxist tactic. Look, a Marxist tactic is to accuse the opposition of what you're doing, and that's a tactic that the Israelis use. I mean, if it's one thing that I can say that they have mastered very much, is the misinformation campaign, the art of espionage. They're very good at getting dirt on people. They're very good at the spy game. You know, they're very good at finding the kinks in the armor. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Okay, why?
Speaker 1:they're very good at finding the kinks in the armor, okay, why invade a country? Why actually put boots on the ground and invade a country If you can simply just find the ways to pull the levers of the mechanism to move the country the way you want it to? So in that way, they're very brilliant. They have, they've posed themselves very efficiently to be the power behind the throne, and I think that it's a very scary situation. When you now look, let's say, look, israel becomes the punching bag in this argument. You know all the time, no-transcript, they're a platform that is pro-Israel. Okay, remove Israel from that situation and let's say make it any other country, make it, I don't know. Pick a country that we get along with really well, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Say Philippines, yeah, say, and Taiwan and China. It could be anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it could be All right. Let's use China as an example. Say that there were a Chinese PAC that influenced heavily 85% of the government to be pro-China, and say that every time you turn on the news, there was a politician talking about how we should support China, we should this and this and this, and China, china, china, china, china, china. After a while, you'd be like, wait a minute, this is America. What about America? So wait a minute. Do I have to send my money to you and do I have to have an I don't know an American PAC and send you a whole bunch of money from Americans that are concerned about and we live here and we vote?
Speaker 2:Also called a PAC.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's crazy to think that a country as small as them can have so much influence and so much power over American enterprise, American infrastructure, American foreign policy. It seems odd. It's odd, Matt it is very odd.
Speaker 1:If you call out that it's odd, you get accused of being anti-Israel or being anti-Semite or whatever they call it Nazi. They're going to come up with whatever evil term that they can slander you with, but they never go back to the argument at hand and explain and put my mind at ease as to why that's okay. No, no, no, no, oh no, we've done nothing wrong. It's you who are wrong, but is it? But is it, but is it? All I'm saying is it's curious and I have questions. You have questions, I have questions and you have questions I have questions.
Speaker 1:People have questions, and why is it wrong to question why a group of politicians would have preference for another country over mine? We're not allowed to ask that, Eric. Why is that offensive to people? It's a great question. I just I have questions. I want to know I don't think it's too far outside the bounds of decency to ask why my politicians that are supposed to be representing me have a hard-on for a country it's not mine yeah, and that happened during.
Speaker 2:Same thing happened during uh gosh, what was it world? It was like was it charles lindbergh or something?
Speaker 1:was like a big, like that he was like yeah, man, we're going down the rabbit hole here today.
Speaker 2:They were like very, very pro-communism and like so much so that they would hold like speeches on the street corner and they're like preaching communism about how it's so great and I'm like, wait a minute, let's not do that. But how much of that money going to the lobby is our own money? How much of that is like we're giving aid to this country. They're paying the lobby. The lobby is then taking that same money that we just gave them and distributing it to our politicians. I'm like, isn't this a big money laundering scheme? We're just kind of redistributing the money that we gave to you.
Speaker 1:Matt, if you quack like a duck, it's probably a duck man.
Speaker 2:Where's. If it quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck man. You know where's? Uh, where's the? What is her? Lily wong, do you? Do you remember her? The, the chinese? She was running for um office.
Speaker 1:She's a battle axe man yeah yeah, yeah, lily tang lily yeah yeah, lily tang yeah she was such a sweet woman I remember I did an interview with her on the channel and she was talking about how she came from communism and she had nothing growing up and it's just such a really awesome story, so it's like to sort of make something go full circle here, matt.
Speaker 1:Yeah people who love freedom and love the idea of really being free and working hard towards a dream. You know, it's like this is the place we all call home, and it doesn't matter where in the world we happen to be from. Of course, we could go into this crazy long drawn out topic of immigration and things like that. That's not what today's show is about and things like that. That's not what today's show is about. But it is interesting, matt, to show that, yes, our country is comprised of many people. Lily Williams.
Speaker 2:Lily Tang Williams. Lily Tang Williams, yes.
Speaker 1:Our country is comprised of many people who come here for a better life and because they want to make the place better. They want to contribute, they want to see the country do well and, by proxy, themselves do well. I got no problem with that, but it's just so crazy when you look at the entire geopolitical mechanism that makes this country work the way that it does. It is very unique. Is it flawed? Yes, is it effective? One would say yes. I mean we've done fairly well for ourselves as a country.
Speaker 1:What's the true cost? That's my concern. What's the real cost? That's, I think, what everyone should really be asking themselves. What's the cost? Are we pledging fealty to Israel? Do we own them? Do they own us? Do we own Ukraine? Does Ukraine own us? What the hell's going on? I think that's all people's mindset. They just want to know the truth. They just want the raw truth and be able to figure out for themselves what really is going on in that situation. And all of a sudden, if you question it, you're all of a sudden this evil person. I don't buy that, not one bit.
Speaker 2:Well, I agree, and I think that that comes with the territory of America being one of the youngest countries in the world. However, we are the most successful. We have one of the highest GDPs, we have one of the best, I guess, way of life. I think the only other country that is younger than us is, uh, aritria, aritria, yeah, I think that's. That's the only country where are they? Africa.
Speaker 1:I believe oh, country in africa, oh and it's an absolute hellhole.
Speaker 2:That's like the. It's like, uh, it's straight dictatorship. Like, yeah, media lockdown, you can't. There's no media, nothing, nothing. But I mean, look at how far America has come. United States of America second youngest country, I believe, most successful republic. I have no fear of being able to go out and do what I want. I can say what I want, I can do what I want. That's within the legal law of you know, hey, we're not going to go out and just like start shooting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know, as long as there's limits, yes, but then you look around and you see like and this blew me away Like, there's like video of like Ukraine where, like they, they're black bagging military age men to go fight a war. I'm like yo, they're straight kidnapping them off the streets Some pretty dark stuff. Yo, that's crazy, that's dark, yeah, and the moms are trying to hold on to their kid and the Gestapo's over there pulling them into the car. I'm like, okay, at least. I mean I'm not condoning the draft but at least the draft.
Speaker 1:they weren't like black bagging people and pulling them in. You know, it was just like hey, go fight or else. At what point does everyday life become slavery? I mean, I think that's also the thin line that we have to really be careful about as a country. At what point do you become nothing more than a wage slave, paying taxes to the beast so that a few people on top can make all the money? I mean, I'm sure the military industrial complex is doing quite well. I've got no problem with that, that's fine.
Speaker 1:You know the capitalist in a person would say well, if you can't beat them, join them, we'll start your own company, or do this or do that, or go get a job for that company, work for that company and things are always going to be well. But it's like if the politicians are getting their palms greased to see it through policy wise, that we stay involved in perpetual war or proxy war or involved somewhere so that the checks to the military industrial complex keep flowing well, the industrial complex making a ton of money, politicians getting their palms greased who's paying for it all? We're working our butts off, struggling, some people are struggling and a recent um, a recent poll that I saw 17 percent of amer Americans do not think they have enough food to eat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, that's crazy. That's a very in the grand scheme of things, in the total population, that is extremely high.
Speaker 1:Now, I promise you, none of those people work for our government.
Speaker 1:No, I guarantee their kids aren't doing without anything. I guarantee you, their kids are in the finest schools and they're driving fancy cars and wearing the nicest clothes and going on three vacations a year, maybe a vacation every month, for all we know. And I'm not saying that success is simply a measure of, oh, this person is doing better than someone, so therefore we should just not like them for that reason. No, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. Hey, I love success. Not like them for that reason. No, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. Hey, I love success.
Speaker 1:I love that America is a place of plenty and a place of ample opportunity for people to see their dreams come to fruition, to build a business, to have passive revenue streams and not have to punch the clock.
Speaker 1:Eventually, it's a dream to be able to just live and retire and enjoy your wealth and pass that wealth on to your family and build a legacy, and I think America is always going to be the best place to do that. Absolutely, I will never make any ifs, ands or buts about that that America is a land of very ample opportunity. Matt, I don't have a college education. Dude, I should not exist as a person, but here I am. I've got this YouTube channel and I found my niche. I carved my little path, you know, but I wasn't supposed to happen. This was not supposed to happen and it did. So it's like you know. America is one of the only places that that can happen, where you know you can carve your own path and, god willing, if you're lucky enough and you move your cards in the right direction, it can pay off.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
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Speaker 1:We are reaching the end of the show and there are so many things to unpack and we leave questions unanswered. We leave moral quandaries on the table. We leave a lot for the listener or viewer. If you're here on the channel to take home and go wow, like you know, look yourself in the mirror and just ask what we are, ask if it's moral, ask if it's. I mean, winning. Is winning is moral, is it? Do the ends justify the means? I mean, if you would have asked me 20 years ago, well, we were in war 20 years ago. It's like we were young kids. We were impressionable. Whatever our leaders said, we believed it as gospel because it was it. It's like, as time goes on and more and more time goes on and the more and more you learn it's like it's okay. I guess all I'm saying is it's okay to reassess what that is for you. We've all done it, yeah, I'm sure you've done it, dude.
Speaker 2:I I think about you, know, not to go down that PTSD rabbit hole, but that's half of what PTSD is growing up and realizing after you have a family, after you have loved ones and after you have a child and you're like man, what you did when you were younger was like not cool, like like it's just, like that's. A lot of that time is spent reflecting back on your actions and like how you would have changed it if you just knew a little bit more. And that's that's what you know being that young. You know infantry, you know kid that's. You know the purpose of that they choose.
Speaker 2:That's why it's a young man's game and I have a lot more respect. I specifically remember I have a lot more respect for our, our like sergeants and our platoon sergeants because they were, they were older, they were family people, they had families. And we're always wondering like why can't we do this? Why can't we go? Well, this is what we're supposed to be doing. And they're like no, can't we go? Well, this is what we're supposed to be doing. And they're like no man, just chill, like that's. They had a way different outlook on life and they were just and the value of life and the value of life than an 18 year old kid. That was like we're door kickers and this is why we're over here and you know, in retrospect you know they had a much better outlook on what we needed to do than did as those younger guys.
Speaker 1:Well, they certainly had a better outlook on surviving and living. I mean if you allowed a war to be ran by 18-year-olds, we would just shoot every building we come to. It's like I don't know. It's just that mindset of he can destroy. But cooler heads must always prevail.
Speaker 2:I have a lot Looking back on it. I have a lot more respect for them, oh yeah, Way more respect For the restraint that they showed.
Speaker 1:I agree, and cooler heads must always prevail. And I guess all I'm trying to get at in this podcast for today's show is I mean, are we the cooler heads, is America the cooler heads, or are we the agents of chaos? And maybe sometimes both are required. Sometimes you have to be an agent of chaos. Yeah, it's hard to think of. To think of that having the. Is that not God? Is that not having the power? Of God like playing God to be such an agent of chaos and you know, are you okay with it?
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess that's kind of wild to think about. We'll leave that for the viewers and the listeners, and if we're ending the show on a question, I will end it on a question as well. Hit us and this is going back to your statement about a study showing that 17 or 18% of America doesn't have enough food. I saw a post and this is not an original question, but it's a good question. I saw a post, and this is not an original question, but it's a good question. Hit us. It was if you force a child to be in school, shouldn't the school lunch be free? If you're making it a legal obligation for your child to be in school, which it is the child has to go to school or the parents get arrested, how can you force them to buy the food they have to eat to be there?
Speaker 2:It's a very interesting question because I am a capitalist. I think that everybody should make money, but that is a very, very true question and statement. It's like you can't force a child to be somewhere and have legal ramifications if they're not there and also force them to buy food. It's like they have to be there. By law, you must provide them. Very similar to if you're going to force someone to be in a gun-free zone. You're obligated to protect them. I agree.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a very astute observation. You know I'm sitting here spinning like I have to come up with an answer because you've asked this question. I believe very much in a voluntary society observation. You know I'm sitting here spinning like I have to come up with an answer because you've asked this question and you know I believe very much in a voluntary society. You know, I used to not be quite as much that way. I used to be, like, really about law and order and, you know, very imperialistic, so to speak. Like you know, I was very much about law and order, pro-military, pro-law enforcement, and I still am.
Speaker 1:Don't get me wrong Support all those guys. They put up with a lot of crap for us. You know I get that. But I do also believe in a voluntary society and I think, hey, like, maybe a happy medium in that situation would be make the food free, feed the kids, make sure they you know, no kids should ever go hungry. Right Now, they do have subsidized lunches, they do. There are subsidized lunches for families that cannot afford to pay for those lunches, okay, fine. And there are accounts that you can pay into to help the kids buy their food Like they actually have. You can pay into the lunch account for kids.
Speaker 1:I've seen that and so that is an option. So you can pay into the lunch account for kids. I've seen that, so that is an option. So, hey, maybe if you're a really wealthy family and you own a big million dollar, multi-million dollar a year business, what's 10 grand?
Speaker 2:Tax write-off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, write it off and put it in the lunch account. But make it voluntary. Hey, you don't have to do it. Society will always self-marinate, right? Society will always self-heal. Things will always happen Like before. We had income taxes. Now I don't want to get we're kind of going over on time on the show today but I'll just quickly mention how did we have roads and infrastructure and all this before income taxes?
Speaker 2:Smaller government we had, we had more money surplus, I mean you want to go there.
Speaker 1:It's like the, the, the society that we've created with all this usury and fractional banking and inflation and all of this controlled chaos. You know our very government. They're agents of chaos and they create the chaos so they can create the solution. And, of course, when the solution drops, it's going to require you to give up something, and that's the game. That's the game on the inside, and the game on the outside is our war game, and that's how we operate, and the theory, anyway, is that we all survive well enough. But I guess I'm questioning what well enough is. What is their definition? What is their definition of well enough? And are we okay with well enough? Right, I suppose that's an important thing to consider. It's relevant.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I guess we'll end this show on Reagan's famous quote on what's the scariest thing to hear I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
Speaker 1:Here to help bitch Yep. And the older you get, the more apparent it becomes and the more your blood pressure rises. Yep, that's just how that works. I hope everyone has a fantastic week and thanks so much for tuning in If I do my part. Usually we host the show on Mondays around 9 o'clock, If I remember to upload the show on Sunday night.
Speaker 2:We do our best to remind you, I'm not going to claim, I always do.
Speaker 1:But I try. I'm a human being. I make mistakes like anyone else, but thank you all so much for tuning in. There's a lot more content on the way. I appreciate all the years of support from our viewers, not only on LLP but on the main channel, for all the content I've been putting out.
Speaker 1:I was reflecting on that the other day and for those of you that are still here, I know this has been a long show but I might as well ramble a little bit since we're near the end. But I was reflecting on that the other day that people, a lot of folks, have supported me for and we put out a lot of content almost 1500 videos. That's a lot over the course of about 16 years. So it's just kind of crazy to think that one day something becomes a pet project, something for fun, and then one day you wake up and you realize it was your living for 16 years and it's like where does time go? And maybe that's what our country, maybe our country is a reflection of that, that we got so used to that way of life that we just accepted. That's who we are and maybe that's the simple answer. Matt.
Speaker 2:Very well could be.
Speaker 1:I'm here for it anyway, so have yourselves a great week. Many more podcasts on the way. We'll see y'all soon. Bye everybody. Thanks for listening to Life, liberty and Pursuit. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify and anywhere else podcasts are found. Be sure to leave us a 5s Spotify and anywhere else podcasts are found. Be sure to leave us a five-star review. We'd really appreciate that you can support us over on Ballistic Inc by picking yourself up some merch and remember, guys, dangerous freedom. Have a good one.