Life Liberty and the Pursuit

LLP #140: A Step Too Far?

• Life Liberty and the Pursuit

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The fastest way for power to grow is during a crisis—and right now, many cities are living on that edge. We dig into the hard stuff: National Guard deployments on urban streets, cross‑state activations, and the rise of plain‑clothes detentions around federal facilities. We separate legitimate public safety needs from the creeping normalization of opaque authority, and we ask the question that matters most: are we building accountable order or just getting comfortable with control?

From there, we follow the money. Immigration enforcement is changing the labor market—truckers’ wages are moving, competition shifts, and people feel the difference at work. But tariffs and inflation hit at the register, quietly taxing everyone while Congress pushes trillion‑dollar packages that nobody reads line by line. We connect those dots so you can see how street‑level policy and macroeconomics collide in your daily budget, not just in headlines.

We also call out the incentives that keep the fog thick: omnibus bills that hide votes, insider trades that reward silence, and a culture that punishes anyone who won’t toe the line. Along the way, we highlight a Chicago case that shows how a database error can turn a lawful gun owner into a felon overnight, and we lay out the bright lines that protect civil liberties—clearly identified officers, clear jurisdiction, and proportional force.

If you care about safety without surrendering freedom, this conversation is for you. Hit play, then tell us where you draw your red line and why. Subscribe, share with a friend who argues back, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Your voice helps set the standard we’ll all be living under tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00:

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. Alright, everybody, welcome back. This is Eric and Matt here with LLP, and I hope everybody has had a wonderful week. Life, Liberty, and Pursuit is your home for all things normal in a world gone completely mad. And I appreciate all of our wonderful listeners andor viewers for uh coming back for another episode. And today we're gonna be diving into some crazy stuff, and I can't wait to get into it. Matt, how are things?

SPEAKER_01:

Great, man. Um, you know, you we wake up, both feet hit the ground, no back pain, no knee pain. We're good, man. We're good.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, so is this the the 40 and over podcast now where we talk about all the crap that goes on when you start getting older and broke and all messed up and stuff?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, man. Like just residual pains from growing, you know, living life.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, just a general feeling of existential dread, um, a feeling of general terror, like you could die any minute. Kind of those things start.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Yep, anxiety, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, okay, right on.

SPEAKER_01:

So your knees are still working for now, until the next guy grabs a hold of my foot and starts to yank. That'd be bad.

SPEAKER_00:

It's funny, like in the intro, I almost caught myself going a little bit William Shatner. Um, I've been watching Star Trek, going back and watching all the Star Trek movies, and uh, and it's almost like, all right, today we will go and make our episode.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, and another the miming.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. And I start drinking coffee and I start talking about William Shatner, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's those movies were great, man. Like that's the OG ones with like Spock and Scotty and the the first Star Trek movie, oh my god, it's so freaking good.

SPEAKER_00:

That how can you top it? It's like the movies got progressively worse, but the first Star Trek movie was like, oh my god, it's so freaking good. It's it's so good. How are they gonna how can they top that? I mean, the colors, the the filming, just the special effects, it's like wow, they really knocked that movie out of the park.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, so good. The Wrath of Khan was pretty good, man. Like that was a good one. Just like the whole story, like yeah, like everything about it was was good. I enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_00:

Search for Spock isn't bad. Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

I like the OG crew, you know, with with Kurt, Uhura, yes, Uhura, yeah, exactly, man.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, like anyway. So today's episode, y'all. We're not gonna be talking about Star Trek, unfortunately. We may maybe in a future episode the content a little bit, but um today's episode, we're gonna be talking about you know, all of this stuff going on with the National Guard being deployed to various cities, and uh is this a form of government overreach, as we say in the title, a step too far. Um, at what point um does the government need to step in and intervene in society, and how much of that should we allow? Um, we're gonna dive into some nuance on this and discuss it. I have some feelings about it. I know Matt has some feelings about it, and we're gonna give some of our opinions on the matter and see where we wind up. And I think you may be surprised. Um so before we get started, I would like to thank our friends at My Patriot Supply. Cold weather will be here before you know it. And you know what I realized the other day? If the power goes out when it's really cold, I have no way to keep myself and my family warm. Isn't that crazy? You could actually freeze. But when I heard about the Vesta off-grid space heater from our friends at My Patriot Supply, it's a space heater that doesn't use electricity. It runs on something called canned heat, which is an indoor safe fuel. It's a Vesta stashed in my closet. I know that I can keep warm no matter what, and it doubles as a stove to boil water or cook food, which is pretty cool. Now the best part is that you can get a Vesta and a bunch of other free gifts when you order the winter prep special from My Patriot Supply. Just go to mypatriotsupply.com forward slash LLP. That's Lima Lima Papa to see everything that's included. This offer won't last long, and neither will this nice fall weather. So go to mypatriot supply.com slash LLP today. And uh big thanks to our friends at LL or uh I'm sorry, My Patriot Supply who've just been wonderful to us and um and helping us keep the show going and helping support us in our efforts there. So I'm sure that it goes without saying that there's been a lot of attention that's that's being given to the current state of things in our country, and it's not always easy to talk about because you know, people Matt, people kind of have this like uh head in the sand approach to life sometimes. And and I get it, like as I've said in previous videos, you know, and and podcasts with you, that life is hard and it's not getting any easier, and people are struggling in some cases to make ends meet, they're working hard, they're trying to do their best to take care of their families and enjoy a life of dignity and fun and love with their family, and and sometimes that forces a person to choose very carefully how they spend their time. And sometimes it's like, hey, when you have a free hour or two, you'd rather go with your kids to the park or walk the dogs or do something with your family. And yeah, not everyone is gonna sit on Twitter and doom scroll and see all the latest tea that is going on in the world. Now, granted, those dopamine hits uh they do hit, and for for many, it's it's a thing, right? But I'm not gonna blame someone for not paying attention to some of the things that are going on because some people are just simply ingrained in the joy and minutia of life, and and that's okay. Um, I'm not gonna blame someone for not paying attention to issues if that's what they do. Uh, however, there, you know, there's been a lot of attention and scrutiny drawn towards these National Guard deployments, right? Uh there was a National Guard deployment in Washington to basically deal with crime, uh rampant crime that they were not happy with, Matt. And now we see that the National Guard's been deployed to, where is it, Seattle up there?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh uh Portland's Portland, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Portland, right. I mean Portland, Oregon is such a weird little city, right?

SPEAKER_01:

But that whole area's always been very, very left-leaning. Like, like almost like to where the I believe like they the local governments were shut down for a like really long time. So yeah, the the guard uh is out there, uh, and I believe it's because of uh in Oregon specifically, it's the ICE, uh the ICE detention center. So I was watching a report and they're kind of they've been out there for a while, apparently, so about 120 days or so, just kind of protesting in the in front of the ICE detention center as as they're bringing people in and out.

SPEAKER_00:

Um and there's been some clashes and things, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean there's always Yeah, there's always when you start looking at stuff like that, there's always a reason to bring the guard in. Um, but when you start talking about government overreach, I think it's not the fact that the National Guard was deployed. And it's not just the National Guard, it's also like ICE, Homeland Security, um, all of those, all of those uh, you know, departments. I think the guard is just the most prevalent one because they're they're seen the most. A lot of times, uh lots of times it's like the ICE and Homeland Security are plain clothes, so you don't see them that that much. But it it is I they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. That's what the guard is in place for. The guard is used as a state tool, unless they've been federalized and moved to a different state. Um, which is to me, is kind of weird that you're using a different state's National Guard instead of your own National Guard. Um so that would that to me, I don't understand the I don't I don't maybe I need to do a little bit more research on it, but I don't understand the concept behind that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, think about it like this, okay? You're driving along in your local city, or let's just say a highway that's adjacent to a local area you live in, or something like that. Like here we have Highway 75. All right, you're cruising down highway 75, you get pulled over for speeding, all right, and it's let's just say it's the county next to yours or something like that. All right. That cop that's running speed there for that neighboring county probably doesn't live in the county that he polices in. And there's a that's very common that a lot of people will go a county or two over to police because they don't want to police in a county they live in because they don't want the locals knowing that they're a police officer and then treating them differently within the society they live in. So you know, maybe, and of course, this is me speaking out of turn or speaking, let's just say out of fashion here, but but maybe it's that the reason they're bringing in another state's guard is that the the citizens of that state, uh, was it Oregon?

SPEAKER_01:

Oregon.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh the citizens of Oregon don't have to carry out these things against their own people. They'll just use another state's guard to do it. So then when those guys deploy back home, well, they're back wherever they came from, and they don't have to worry about the locals constantly unmasking them and knowing who they are. So maybe it becomes an OPSEC uh issue for them where they want to maintain a little bit of uh, you know, anonymous fashion in terms of not being really known by anybody.

SPEAKER_01:

But I would argue that that's the reason that they're getting such a bad rap. And guys, don't get this wrong, I'm not advocating that you shouldn't uh, you know, use the guard or anything's wrong. But the fact that those people in the guard don't have any ties to their state or their neighborhood, they're treating people inappropriately.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Versus if you live in the area, you don't have to be unmasked because they know you. Maybe the you can it's like when you walk into the store, like those old police, like the experiences where like you walk in and everybody knows the sheriff or the police officer, and they're like, hey man, like don't make me do this. Just and then they they go ahead and just listen because they know you, you have a relationship with them, it's a lot easier to deal with someone you know, like all right, for instance, I you know, good example.

SPEAKER_00:

If I got hemmed up on something and my sheriff came to talk to me, well, you better believe like I have a great relationship with my sheriff. I mean, that's gonna that conversation's gonna hit different for me, yeah, because I have a personal relationship with their family, like I know them. So, yeah, obviously, like it's gonna be way harder to not want to do the right thing. Not that I would ever be in that position, you know, because I'm a I'm an angel.

SPEAKER_01:

Law abiding citizen.

SPEAKER_00:

Law abiding citizen. Oh, we must fight to the death or they will kill us both. Shatner. Shatner. Sorry, I've been watching too much Star Trek. But the point is, you're right. Uh now, where would this these things start to draw some awry from people or or air from people where they're going, okay, well, we can understand you're bringing in another state's national guard. And look, let's backtrack for a second. Um, the the governor of each state has direct control over the guard resources in their state. Okay. They do receive federal funding, all right? Considerable amount of and and mainly in the form of equipment, um, in the form of let's say like bases, like if a state maintains uh a large infantry post, like here in Georgia, we have Fort Benning, we have Fort Stewart. I mean, those are large, you know, posts that are within our state. Yeah, those receive a lot of federal funds to obviously, you know, keep those those bases going. And I'm sure that there's some sort of underwritten kind of agreement that, you know, hey, because our state hosts this much infantry or whatever, that yeah, if there were a war or something, they're probably gonna draw on the Georgia Guard maybe a little quicker than they may draw on some of the neighboring states just because of the resources we have within the state. Now I'm speaking out of turn here, but the point I want to articulate is that the governor has direct control over the guard and can deploy them within their state or other states pretty, I think with relative impunity. Um I think that they have to, you know, go through some different channels, like when it comes to deployment on Title X to go overseas, like what we did. But generally, um the governor, you know, for an emergency or to render aid to a local state, I think it's pretty easy for them to rubber stamp and send the guard wherever they want within reason. So just want to make that uh clear in case people didn't know. Every state has their own guard. Um, that, you know, maybe just in case that wasn't known. And what is the National Guard, right? The National Guard is basically a reserve type auxiliary component of the military, right? You have the Air National Guard, which is like your air uh force version, right, of the National Guard. Like kind of think of a guard soldier, kind of like reservists, right? They go and they train um, you know, a couple of weekends out of the month or one weekend out of the month. They have annual training, two or three weeks. They may deploy overseas during the annual training if they're lucky, or the annual training may be locally, uh domestically. And they get together and they train skills and they build uh, you know, unit um, you know, cohesion, and and and they are a group of people who can be relied on in the event of natural disasters, even to deploy overseas and fight wars if necessary. So the guard can do anything that an army reserve unit can do, or marine reserve unit, so on and so forth. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

I would say even more because the the difference between the National Guard and the Reserve is the reserves don't have any combat arms components, which is why you usually see other states going in. Um, and it's usually their infantry units or their combat arms units that are going in. The reserves are strictly support. So yeah. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00:

So the guards are the only ones that have actual combat.

SPEAKER_01:

Correct. Yeah, the reserves have no combat arms. Huh. That's it's strictly that's that they they are there to supplement big army as as support and logistics and everything.

SPEAKER_00:

So big army relies on the guard if they need more combat arms.

SPEAKER_01:

Correct. And that's why they did so many rotations overseas in Iraq. And all those infantry battalions were going.

SPEAKER_00:

So at what point, all right, this seems rather innocuous. Okay, there's some trouble, people are causing some issues. Now, look, is there a difference between protesting and causing an outright ruckus? Yes, there are. I mean, you have the right to protest, okay? Now, granted, there are probably some provisions and some rules for protests that you have to follow, but generally speaking, from what I understand, uh to organize a protest is not incredibly difficult. You know, you can you can you can organize a mass protest and by all means protest. Uh the police will protect you, they'll be there, you know. Um I went up to an open carry rally at the state capitol. This has been some years ago. This is when Barry was still alive. And uh, and sure, they had um organized a big open carry rally at the Capitol, right? And it was like maybe a couple of hundred, two or three hundred people showed up with guns, like you know, open carry rifles on your chest, the whole nine years. Wait, the Georgia Capitol? Yes, right up at the Georgia Capitol.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought you meant like decal. I was like, oh my god, how would that be?

SPEAKER_00:

So it's like you got 300 people standing around with long guns, yep. Open carry rally, and it's just to show solidarity for the Second Amendment. And at the time, I think we were dealing with some potential anti-gun legislation in the state of Georgia, which is kind of odd to hear, but the state legislature in Georgia has generally been pretty good on that. And uh, you know, Kemp, there's some things about Kemp I don't agree with, but he's generally been pretty good on guns. Uh, I think this was even back when Purdue was governor. So this has been a while. Okay. But anyway, yeah, you got 300 people out there with guns, and of course the cops are out there too. You know, that GSP was out there and they were armed, and it's like, you know, hey, everybody was cool. They didn't give us a hard time, we didn't give them a hard time. They knew what was going on, we knew what was going on, and it was cool. We were able to speak at the Capitol, you know, give give show our support uh and and show our willingness to, you know, um let our voices be heard, and that's fine. You can protest all you want. At what point, though, does a protest turn into, you know, crazy politically driven literal violence, such as, you know, now you're talking pushing over police cars and burning buildings and setting the freaking police department on fire. Is that a protest anymore? I mean, maybe to the left it may be. They they love to use violence and uh and destroy property. They they love to destroy property. So again, without going on the the limb of being called some statist or something, that's not what I'm trying to say. Okay, I'm not trying to say that I agree with any government overreach of any sort. But can you really expect to be treated any differently if you act that way? I mean, I think that if you want to be treated with respect, you got to treat others with respect too. You know, we we have the right to protest. There are protocols for these things. We do it so that we all know what's going on, no one hurts each other, we let our voice be heard, all good, right? It happens all the time. Plenty of protests. I mean, look at that No Kings protest I had the other day. Now, I'm not gonna get into the weeds in that, but the guard wasn't called out for that because you know, I mean, people were acting a little crazy, and there's some viral uh meme moments that are memeable for sure for some of the crazy characters we saw out there.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But other than them just being crazy and a little batshit weird, they didn't really do anything wrong that would merit needing to, you know, call a guard unit out to quell the issue. If the guard gets called out over uh an assembly or protest or something, it's because they have deemed that the level of violence has gotten to a point of no return that the local law enforcement can't handle on their own. Or the local law enforcement is not willing to handle it on their own. Now, there are some things about all of this that don't set well with me, and I think Matt, uh you and I are probably on the same page here. I want to let I want you to elaborate because I I know what you're probably gonna mention, this whole snatching thing where they're pulling people over. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01:

Like if you and I say this because if it from what the reports are showing and from what all the video evidence is showing, they're essentially black bagging people that they they allege are here illegally. Um, and you guys will can look at the videos, they're all over the internet. Um they're just walking up plain clothes what are believed to be um federal agents. We don't know because they fail to identify themselves. So you'll see everybody's recording good. I mean, obviously, you we have the technology, and we've seen it time and time again that you know these videos have brought a lot of injustices to light. I am anti-government overreach. I don't I don't believe you should even need a permit to protest. If it's a public area, you go out there. The only time you the only reason you need a permit is so that you don't have two conflicting protests going on at the same time.

SPEAKER_00:

So, like to me that's and I think it's also good that the cops know kind of like what's going on so they they they know that you're not trying to do anything nefarious. Fair enough. Now, now now look, I I'm not I'm not saying that there should be some permit required, but if you're gonna amass 500 people in one place to, you know, especially if if everybody's gonna have guns, probably not a bad idea to let them know, hey, we're gonna do this.

SPEAKER_01:

You can let them know.

SPEAKER_00:

Let them know so they don't show up with some freaking you know, trucks of armed men and try to cause a stink, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm not a fan of them saying shutting it down because you don't have a permit. Like if you're just letting them know, that's fine. But don't use it as an excuse to score.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like if they walk up, hey, what's going on? There's a lot of people with guns. Oh, we're just having a protest. It's all good. Yeah, everybody's fine. We're allowed to put the kids and dogs are here. There's a clown face paint like, you know, it's like making a family thing. Yeah, and a lot of times they'll they'll make it kind of a family thing. When I went up to the rally in Virginia, the big 2A rally. Oh my God, we had so many people show up to that 2A rally in Virginia, thousands of people. Yeah, they completely flooded the streets. And I tell you, it was one of the most interesting things that I've ever witnessed as an American in terms of uh a demonstration, right? For one, everybody was armed. I'm talking, there were guys walking around with Barrett and 107s. I mean, there was guys walking around with scars, everyone was armed. And I'm gonna tell you the demographic, the makeup of those people, all different sorts of people. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, you name it, they were there. Everybody was represented. Nobody was at each other's throats, everybody was getting along, they were all peaceful, everybody was hanging out, eating snacks, they had freaking street food. I mean, it was it was great. And one of the most interesting things about that rally when it was over, not a speck of trash on the street.

SPEAKER_01:

It's always like that. They picked up that I like it.

SPEAKER_00:

They didn't trash the place, everything was in order and well kept, not even so much as a fucking cigarette butt on the ground. Now, if you tell me that is not an honest representation of the Second Amendment community, I don't know what is. So I always tend to view my ability to protest and let my grievances be known to the government as a Second Amendment supporter. I always view that as uh with a bit of pride because I I know what my people were capable of, and I know how good they are, and I know that they're all, you know, good, honest people that are always going to do the right thing. So it's very easy for me to put my name in front of something like that, um, knowing that that we got such great people, you know. So not every movement you you can really say the same thing about, right? You you look at all this stuff with Antifa, and you know, they're doing no telling what, and and they're literally advocating for political violence at a far-reaching level. And so when you have a group of people who say, hey, we're gonna get together and show up at the Capitol with our guns and just show solidarity and and respectfully uh protest our ability, you know, hey, like here's our Second Amendment rights, we don't want them to be infringed, whatever. That's one thing when you come with a message of peace and you come with a message of solidarity, but when you come with a message of political violence and it's like an openly known thing and they don't even try to hide it, it's like, how are they supposed to react? That would be my argument. So, yeah, everyone's against government overreach. Nobody wants the National Guard to show up and start curbs domping people. Nobody wants people to show up and start black blackbagging people. No matter who on the left or right you talk to about this issue, no one agrees with the feds coming in and snatching people up in the night. Nobody wants that. Uh, you know, now there's probably a huge subset of people on the right who are tickle pink that their opponents are being rounded up and thrown in federal prison. And maybe some of them need to be thrown in federal prison, but not because they're politically uh divisive and being opponents of you politically, but because they've committed an actual crime. Maybe they've committed arson or they've damaged some property. Well, does it matter if somebody is a Democrat or Republican, if they've committed a crime, they've committed a crime? And in my view, um, nobody is above the law. So, okay, if these people are dumb enough to commit these crimes in the presence of these people and they get hemmed up, that's on them for doing that. All right. So in my mind, um I don't really see a problem with those people being hemmed up. If somebody on the right did something terrible, they would get hemmed up too. I don't think they would make any distinction um of someone's political uh affiliation if they've committed a crime.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yeah, I I would agree. However, the videos that are circulating are just normal people um just riding the subway or driving down the street, they're getting pulled over and it and it blows me away because now we're discussing ICE detentions.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So like I don't agree with that.

SPEAKER_01:

Just like ICE or Homeland Security, whoever they are, because again, they don't they don't declare what agency they're with, which I don't understand um how they get away with that. Yeah, and it just blows me away because you you see it and it's very reminiscent of like the stop and frisk papers, like, hey, you have to show me that you're an American. Like, I don't really carry around anything that identifies me strictly as an like, just for example, me, like I have a driver's license, but you don't need to be a citizen to get a driver's license. Not I mean, so it just turns into like this, oh, we're gonna arrest you now, and then you have to prove later that you're a citizen, which goes against everything of pre in presumed innocence um before the fact.

SPEAKER_00:

Their argument is that an illegal an illegal doesn't have rights. So if they suspect you of being an illegal, they can detain you indefinitely until they figure out who you are. But who's in their mind, right? I'm just telling you the way they think. If they're like, well, this person has no rights, but what about the situations where a person's detained and they are a citizen and they're way hugely inconvenienced for days, sometimes weeks, and no telling what type of uh legal fees they have to incur to exonerate their name against a group of people who simply you know just thought they were illegal because maybe they were Hispanic or they were whatever.

SPEAKER_01:

And and that and nobody around them are stepping up to help. So if I was there, and I'm not saying this because you know I'm an armchair quarterback, I would would have to be inclined to say something and do something if I see two or three guys that are in plain clothes handcuffing a dude that are refusing to identify what agency they work for, who they are. Yeah, who how do you know who they are? It could be the KGB, man. Like, who knows, man?

SPEAKER_00:

Like I mean, it could be someone impersonating a nice officer, and maybe they're gonna kidnap you or something.

SPEAKER_01:

What if it wasn't a guy? What if it wasn't a 40 or 50-year-old Hispanic guy? What if it was a young girl, uh a 16-year-old uh you know, girl of ethnic descent, and then they're just like three dudes in plain clothes, handcuffing and pulling off, refusing to identify. Then what?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, they are saying that there's over 170,000 applications on the desk to be ICE uh ICE officers.

SPEAKER_01:

They're not grabbing the cream of the crop. They are. I'll tell you that.

SPEAKER_00:

They have received a lot of applications, and and look, I'm probably gonna get some pushback on this, but the truth is, is I I need to be sort of clear on this, right, when it comes to all this. The right has been relatively, and look, I I can call it like I see it, because I'm neither Republican or Democrat or libertarian. I'm just a person who just I'm looking at the giant globe like a like the sorcerer. You know, I see what every side's doing, and and I I see I try to look at it from that holistic overall crystal ball kind of view.

SPEAKER_01:

You call it how you see it. I call it how I see it.

SPEAKER_00:

So the right has been guilty of celebrating, you know, things like, oh, they say, well, I voted for Trump, and Trump is deporting illegals, therefore I'm getting what I voted for. All right, fair enough. Uh, you know, look, I fall into the camp where, yeah, like there's some of these people that need to get out of here.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Obviously. There's a lot of majority of them.

SPEAKER_00:

And and right now, I I read a report the other day that um truckers are now seeing much higher wages because they have been deporting so many illegals. Well, yeah, if you're not having to uh compete with what was it, some 20 million or something, like 20 million illegals, they're saying are in the country. Yeah, if Americans who are trying to work hard and been here their whole life doing the right thing, or they came here the right way and they immigrated here through the proper channels and they're trying their best to do their do the right thing and contribute to society, right? Those people are gonna have a much better time in life not having to compete with people who really don't have any skin in the game. And I think that's the issue. I mean, like, not to look, I'm not grandstanding here. It's like my family's been here since 1630, right? Yes, we were immigrants, but but you know, there has to be a point where it's like, holy crap, I mean, I've been my family's been here since before that this country even existed. Right. So it's like over the years, my ancestors seen a lot of things come and go. And it's like you look at things now, yeah, as someone who's a, I don't know, what is it, 12th generation American or whatever it is at this point, you know, like I I'm so I'm I've kicked, I'm a can that's been kicked down the road a long way, right? And do I look at that and I and I view it with disgust that someone can just walk over the border into the land of milk and honey and be handed a full platter and have all of these services provided to them and you know, receive really good and and dare I say special uh preferential treatment just by virtue of existing in my country and breaking the law and coming here. Of course I don't agree with that. I think it's terrible. And it's also spits in the face of people who are first generation immigrants. Like I know some people in my life that that are first generation immigrants. In fact, one person just got their citizenship like I think last December. So absolutely a fresh American who went through all the proper process. Okay. Hey, I've got nothing but respect for people who go through the proper process. We have a process for a reason, right? There are many people on the right who think that, oh, we should even have more strict protocols for who we allow to come here, even through the proper channels. And you got people on the left who are saying, well, those proper channels should be expedited and we should allow people to come here in a much easier fashion. So, hey, some on the left are saying, it's cool. Like we understand that you you don't want people coming across the border just, you know, waltzing across the border. Well, yeah, then make the process for them coming in easier. Then there's people on the right who are more like, well, we want the the the we want the consequences to be much more difficult for them to be able to come in.

SPEAKER_01:

But you know, there they're any country, and I I agree with you, like I if you if you ask anybody that went through the proper protocols and processes to become a US citizen or Or even a illegal alien, a resident, whatever it may be, they will agree with you that what the people are doing to come here illegally are wrong. They don't like illegal immigration because they went through it the correct way. I think that's a good thing. It costs a lot of money too. A lot of money, but you also have to study. You have to prove that you understand American history, that you understand our culture, that you understand, like it asks you questions about, you know, holidays, because they're trying to integrate you into the American culture. So it's like, hey, what is Thanksgiving about? Like these are these are tests that, like, hey, if you're gonna be an American and you want to be an American citizen, you have to understand like what we do and where we come from. So I'm in I'm in agreement with that. But what a lot of people fail to realize is that America, the land of milk and honey, we only have so many resources at the time. Our um, you know, our society, our social services, meaning our hospitals, our roadways, our like any type of social service that we provide, there's a limit. That doesn't mean that you know it's gone forever. That just means we have to scale. And, you know, uh obviously America is the greatest country in the world, and everybody, and people will say, oh no, it's not bullit. Everybody's still coming here. Why? Because we're the greatest, all right? We have the best opportunities, we have the best culture, you know, we infrastructure infrastructure. Like we're like, if there was a like for something above first world, that would be us, all right. I'm not bragging, but I am all right. There's a reason everybody wants to come to America.

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe Dubai would be a close. I mean, like if you're Dubai is pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

If you're uh Dubai citizen, because they because they they are they are minorities in their own country and they're okay with that because they have a total uh totarian government. They dude, you think America is bad? Please go over there and hold. I'm speaking about it mainly from the standpoint of it being an extremely modern city, it is super nice, but they can control, they have a very, very heavy hand on immigration, migration, and who can come and who can go because you have to. Once your services become like bottlenecked, it slows it down and it ruins it for everybody.

SPEAKER_00:

So I think someone working at like a fast food restaurant in Dubai makes like$75,000 a year or something crazy like that, even just working at fast food so in a street sweeper, like at the cleanest streets ever. You could like cook an egg on the street and probably be okay eating it.

SPEAKER_01:

So I with that, just like America, our social services become overwhelmed. We have to throttle back and say, hey, you are you can come to the US, but it's gonna be a year or two.

SPEAKER_00:

Let our bums in the freaking in the in the gutter, you're not gonna see people pissing and shit in the street. You're not gonna see that stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like, hey, everybody likes the let's just say like Coca-Cola, and you love Coca-Cola, and you're filling up a cup of a glass of Coca-Cola and the glass is full. You don't keep pouring, you stop. You stop pouring the drink, you drink it, and then you refill it. Just like all immigration, we want. I I personally love to have you know people from other countries come in. They provide a great uh cultural difference. We learn a lot from each other. That doesn't mean they should be coming in 24-7. Our services get overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, let's say we pour a pour a coke and it's like the most amazing thing ever. And like you said, that cup is full. You don't start adding more, and when that cup begins to get more empty, you just add more coke. What we're doing is when the coke is halfway full, we're adding a half a glass of water and we're diluting it. We're diluting the quality of the product.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a very good, that's a very good uh, I guess, analogy?

SPEAKER_00:

Analogy, yes. I mean, look, I understand why people would want to come to America. I get that. And I didn't really want this show to be primarily about immigration day, but it is important because immigration is a hot button topic that is connected to all of this overreach because, you know, the ice detentions, okay. Again, getting back to this left versus right paradigm, which sometimes I think is almost a little unfair to approach, right? It's simply not about left and right anymore, Democrat and Republican anymore. It's it's really just about what is morally and logically and legally right and what isn't. And yes, there is a lot of government overreach and there's a lot of crazy things that are going on that I don't agree with. I mean, but sometimes some of it is a little necessary, and that that's what's so jacked up about it. Because it's like, I'm sure the truckers are really happy right now that their wages are higher because we've been deporting so many um, you know, people that don't have any business, you know, taking American jobs.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, people are dying too. Truckers are like running into people, families killing them.

SPEAKER_00:

That whole fiasco in in California where they were giving people truck driving license without even kind of any special requirements, which is as crazy of a state as California is, and all the things they require, all the permits, like if you want to build onto your house or do anything to your house in California, it is a huge pain in the butt. You have to go through all this crap, especially if you live out in the desert anywhere and you want to, let's say, have a water cistern on your property, or you want to add sewage, or you want to do anything like that, septic, electrical, plumbing, any of that. Oh my God, the permits are out of the out of control. Like, yeah, you can buy a little desert shack in the middle of nowhere for next to nothing and fix it up. But the problem is you're gonna pay, you're gonna pay the man a ton of money just for the permission to do that. So a state like California, of all places, as militant as they are, with paperwork and fees and things, you know there has to be some political undertone for why they are allowing those things to happen on their watch, because they know dang well that they they want chaos. They want to create the chaos so they can come in and provide the solution.

SPEAKER_01:

There has to be some some sort of lobby going on with truckers to for them to allow that to happen. Like, hey, these illegal immigrants are willing to drive these trucks for half the price of American drivers, and our company's really going to benefit from it, and they're kind of padding the the bank of their local, you know, congressman or senator or what house rep or whatever it may be. There has to be, because CDLs are very, very regulated. People think you can just go get a CDL. You cannot. Like you have to go and you have to test for it, you have to do drug tests, you have to do physicals. I don't even know how they got past that part about how they got the actual driver of the city. And you gotta be able to speak English, I'm sure. You have to be able to read English signs. Yeah. So it's like, what happened here? How did this happen?

SPEAKER_00:

Now we're we're using the scope of, or we're using a very narrow scope of looking at it just from the standpoint of the truck drivers, but it trickles down through society, y'all. Everything from food service industry to anything else that you can possibly think of, every area of life that an illegal immigrant can take a job uh from an American, you're seeing improvements in the quality of life of average Americans. And if you look at all of this inflation, um inflation is absolutely out of control. And sure, you know, Trump is adding some of these tariffs, but that that is essentially still going to cause some inflation. Because I mean, yeah, all this cheap Chinese crap that we're buying. I mean, I don't want to say crap because China actually makes some pretty good stuff. I mean, look at some of the top-end consumer electronics that you use on a regular basis. I mean, even this iPhone is made in China. So China can make good things if you pay them to make good things. And that's the common misconception about Chinese goods, is that they're bad. It's not, I just say junk as in like, well, yeah, there's a lot of low-end consumer goods that don't cost a lot of money, like tupware dishes or, you know, little small goods and things like that that you can buy cheaper. All the stuff coming in from China is getting slapped with these tariffs, which will increase the cost of those Chinese goods in the store for you, the consumer. So, yeah, uh Tupware, let's use a tupware dish, for example. I don't know, say a little food dish or something that uh at the store. It might have cost uh$5 before, might cost$9 now or$10 now. So you are going to see some trickle-down effect of tariffs. Now, do tariffs, you know, make the overall fiscal situation of our country better? Well, well, maybe for them. But again, getting back to the average American who's just trying to put food on the table, and many of them are living paycheck to paycheck. In fact, day to day and sometimes week to week, they're doing everything they can to maintain the struggle. You know, does that really help the average American at the end of the day, the end user? Um, okay, it's good that getting rid of these illegals is increasing salaries and maybe getting more Americans employed, which is great. It's bringing us more out of the hole, but it still doesn't uh uh solve the fractionary banking practices and all of this inflation and all of this sort of hidden grift that is this underlying sort of veneer to everything that's going on. And what they desperately want you to ignore, they want you to not pay attention to all the printing and all, you know, they're giving money away to all these people and they're sending all of our money overseas. When you send money overseas, you're also sending you're sending your wealth overseas. You're giving your wealth to someone else. But it's what's what's worse, it's even worse the way they do it because they go, well, we're just gonna improve this one and a half trillion dollar budget like Congress is trying to push through right now. The Democrats are trying to push through a$1.5 trillion spending package. And of course, that spending package goes in a whole bunch of different places, right? All their little buddies get their pockets padded, you know. But the problem is that money doesn't exist. It's just created out of nothing. They just print it out of nothing with nothing to back it up other than the word of the United States government, right? It's a promissory no. So the issue is okay, say you have$500 in your pocket and they print$1.5 trillion. How do you, as an individual out and large in society, how do you keep up with that level of waste? Now your dollar loses 10% of its value every year. I mean, we're we're talking almost every year we're losing over 10% of the value of our dollar. At what point is$100 gonna become the new$1 bill? At what point during the winter are people gonna be burning currency to stay warm? It's like, and in some cases, in some third world countries, they have to have so much currency to simply buy a loaf of bread. It's like Venezuela. Yeah. So it's like you might as well use the freaking money for fire tender.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like that's literally not even worth anything.

SPEAKER_00:

So the danger of us as a society that we have is far more uh engrossing and far more implicating than simply some feds deploying and black booting some people. And don't get me wrong, I hate that, but there is a moral, philosophical, and economical boot that is also on our neck that must be addressed, and that boot affects everybody. It's a phantom boot, it's not a literal boot, it is a it is a moral boot that is always there, and I think that's a huge worry that we need to take into consideration as well, Matt.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that's they're spending us to oblivion. It's true because if you look at it, the government currently is shut down as of right now. No government spending the TSA agents at the airports are working for free. Federal, uh, federal, most federal employees, not all, because we're gonna get to that in one second. Yep. Well, he Trump put through like the special provision to pay the soldiers. Otherwise, otherwise, they wouldn't have got paid and he would have been in a world of hurt. A world of hurt. So he did that to save his own ass. What well he did. Most um, most federal employees aren't getting paid, except for guess who? Ding ding. Congress. So Congress is getting paid. Um, of course, they're still collecting the check. I don't agree with that. I would say 99.999% of people don't agree with that. And that 0.0001% that does are the family members of the Congress people.

SPEAKER_00:

So nobody agrees with I mean, all those juicy stock trades aren't enough to keep them going. Come on. No. Like you know dang well, like there are very few congressmen and congresswomen that are actually behind on that. Now, there are, I I looked up the other day because I was curious to know where Thomas Massey was on this sort of chain.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

And okay, Thomas has his his crap together, obviously. Um, but there are some Congress uh men and women who who are behind, like, you know, oh millions of dollars and back taxes. So okay, that aside, right? Most congressmen are doing pretty dang good. In fact, better than good. Um you know, look at Dan Crimshaw's uh stock trades and his first year as a junior congressman, he cleared a ton of money. How much of it was of that was kickbacks and things? I'm not trying to call Dan out, but it's just that's an example of a junior congressman, first year in Congress, and you're a millionaire already. Just, I mean, wow, you you must really have some great stock trades. Yeah. I mean, of course that he knows which stocks to buy because he's being told what stocks to buy, because it's all a grift. It's all you're in the you're in the club or you're not. And when you're in the club, you you you get access to all the inside information, you know what legislation is going through. You know, they may not exactly tell you what stocks to buy, but unless you're you're dumb or blind, you're gonna know, oh wow, this is about to happen. And I know four days in advance, therefore, boom, we're gonna short this stock now. So boom, it takes off. And now we just cleared, you know, we made millions of dollars in no matter of days.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, so with Dan Crenshaw in particular, you know he bent the knee at some point in time because when he first came on the scene, he was everywhere. He was fighting, he was very vocal. He was his social media presence, even when he was in Congress, his social media presence was very strong. He had a lot, a lot of support, a ton of support.

SPEAKER_00:

Early on, Dan Crenshaw and I were on good terms. Like, I thought he was a great guy, you know, thinking, like, okay, this is the kind of guy we need in Congress, like veteran, you know, wounded, you know, loves his country, pro-gun. Like, wow, you know, Dan, Dan's okay guy. And then it's like after a while, he kind of shed those those sheep's clothes. Well, the money got good to him.

SPEAKER_01:

My money got good to him. And, you know, I don't care if he what he thinks when he hears the episode or his friends are gonna send him the link. I mean, he bent the knee at some point in time. Um and it was probably around the time the original HPA was going into effect, yeah, and he kind of let his let his true colors be known. Um, but with that said, it's disappointing. It was very disappointing.

SPEAKER_00:

Um higher uh expectations for him.

SPEAKER_01:

I think a lot of people did.

SPEAKER_00:

And that that's what hurts so much. It's because of his past, it's because who he is, it's because you know the caliber of person that it takes to do what he did. And that that's what hurts hurts me so much is that you expect better. I can expect some crappy piece of piece of crap politician who you see them and you go, Oh yeah, we know exactly what we're getting with this person. But when it's someone like that and you think, okay, I have much higher expectations, look, the truth is when you're a veteran, when you're former military, you know, you have much higher expectations. Society is going to be harder on you because they expect more from you. And and look, if you're gonna use your military experience as a calling card, a Navy CEO, you're gonna use that that experience, then the morals and the principles and the love of your country have to come along with that. If you abandon those principles at any time, it becomes kind of null and void. And that's what's so sad about it. Like he worked so hard in his career to get where he where he did, and then just kind of I feel like he turned his back on his ideals.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, like I said, man, it got the money got good to him. He just wants to lay low. He he's enjoying the ride, he's you know, um, which I brings up a good point. I have something here that I wanted to bring up.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so as far as like laying low and not being very outspoken in Congress, um, let's just say Dan Crenshaw's in the mix. He's still a relatively young guy, right? So the expect his aspirations are probably to be uh a Chuck Schumer that's been in Congress for 44 years, uh a Mitch McConnell for 40 years, a Nancy Pelosi, 38 years, Maxine Waters, 37 years, Bernie Sanders, 34 years, career politicians, career politicians. They've been collecting the check, yeah, they've been running the stock game.

SPEAKER_00:

They have more money than they will ever be able to spend in their kids, kids, kids, kids' lifetime.

SPEAKER_01:

Chuck Grassling, 50 years.

SPEAKER_00:

Bro, it's wild to think that people have been involved in government longer than we've been alive, yeah. And that's wild. And when you look at someone who's in their late 70s, 80s, heck, even their late 60s, really, they're almost too old to even suffer the consequences of their decisions. And I think that is a huge issue that we have to confront as a country. Now, Thomas Massey's been in the news lately, of course. You know, Trump has been gunning hard for Massey. And Massey is a politician that I support quite a bit, and that's rare for me. I rarely give my support to a politician. And I've seen every random, you know, mud they're trying to sling at Massey. And I tell you, um, I've met Massey, you know, I've broke bread with Massey, I've drank with Massey. Massey is a great guy, and he isn't, he is not your average politician.

SPEAKER_01:

He seems like a bourbon guy.

SPEAKER_00:

He yes, he is totally a great guy. And um, I think that he gets a bad rap unfairly. You know, Massey and I do not agree on term limits, okay? I think we should have term limits. Massey's view on term limits is that you know what you're getting a lot more when someone begins to have an established voting record. Now that I agree with, okay. But to Thomas Massey's effect, that is also assuming that we have a recorded vote on line-by-line item for every single issue at hand. Instead of passing one giant pork-ridden package, we should pass individual bills that allow the voting record of a congressman or a senator to be fully vetted, right? You know exactly what they supported and exactly what they didn't. But they don't do that. They do it dirty. They do the dirty pork way and they throw a bunch of crap in a bill so that a politician can just say, well, it wasn't the best written bill. There's some things I didn't really support, but in the name of, you know, political partisanship, oh, well, we, you know, in order for us to cross the aisle, we have to sign off on this.

SPEAKER_01:

That would require them to work, Eric.

SPEAKER_00:

That would require them to work. So in Massey's defense, okay, I understand when he says he doesn't support term limits, you know, I understand that that is also assuming that the voting records of these people is crystal clear and that we know every single little issue that they're on record for supporting or that they don't. So, yes, I can disagree with Thomas Massey and agree with him at the same time based on his morals and his values and the reason that he comes to that conclusion. But how many politicians actually articulate their point to in such a way that allow you to fully understand the reason that they make the decision? Yeah, it's always very few people do it, but Massey does. He'll tell you, hey, here's why I didn't vote for this bill. Because it's not fiscally responsible, because it's not constitutional, it's not about his wants and needs as a person. He has to be above that. And so many of these politicians, Matt, they don't want to think about something that's above them. They want to feel like everything is below them, that they're on an ivory tower and they're trying and everyone's trying to push them off. But Massey simply doesn't operate like that. So, you know, I think that's rare for a politician to admit uh wrongdoing, you know, if they've made a mistake or to change course, or to, you know, give an opinion that is well articulated, that it's not just some talking point that he took from the party, it's his personal view on hey, morally, constitutionally, and fiscally, here is why I do or do not support measure whatever it is. And they don't like him for that because they don't like him because he won't toe the party line.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's that's because he wasn't a politician. He was an engineer. He just happened to run and and win when he did. And that's what kind of that's what kind of separates him from the pack is that he he came into it, he had to learn how the pol political game worked. He wasn't an institutional, like coming up, uh institution, uh, I guess, institutional politician from the beginning. Where they used they usually come in and they'll they're like, oh, I'm a state park director. And then the next one you run up and you're the you're the commissioner for insurance for your state, and then you run for vice governor or lieutenant governor, and then you run for, you know, house senate, and then you run for like government.

SPEAKER_00:

I think his like people pressured him to run. They're like, Oh, you need to run for Congress. You know, nah, nah. And then like they kind of forced him, and he found that. Wow, like he's actually got a knack for that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and so like I love him. But your typical government like politician, that's how they come up. They come up, they start very early right out of college, and they're like, you know, campaign managers, and then they start just kind of get their feet wet, um, which is what makes him unique. I would think, I think a massy, uh, a massy Paul ticket would be very interesting to see. That'd be a that would be a blob right there. Um, but as as far as overreach goes, I just wanted to touch on a couple of things. I know that um in Chicago of all places, there's there is a case of what I believe is a very egregious case of overreach. And it was a uh Lewis McWilliams, a black business owner, has uh a legal uh concealed carry license and a firearms license because in Chicago, apparently you need two. You need one to own a firearm and you need one to carry a firearm, which he had both of. He legally had both of them. Legal firearms owner in Chicago of all places, probably one of the dangerous places on the face of the freaking planet, and the most difficult place to own any gun legally. And he he had it. Police pulled him over, he declared his firearm. I saw the body cam footage myself, declared the firearm to the police. Police were, you know, in to their respects, they were cool about it. They said, Hey, where's it at? It's on my hip. He gave him he gave them both licenses. Apparently, his concealed carry license or his firearms license uh wasn't registered in the system, and all of a sudden that's his fault. So now he gets arrested. He's got a couple of felony charges put on him, put him in, they took him to jail. And um, when he reached out, the state solicitor went ahead with the charges for some reason. And then the another solicitor was like, Hey, it clearly states in the law that if he has the physical card, which he did, and the computer system says he doesn't, no action is to be taken. And they arrested him and put him in jail and charged him with a felony anyways. And I'm like, that's not your job. Your job as a police officer is to police he was a law-abiding citizen, had both licenses. There's no reason that this man should be having to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get this felony expunged from his record. So that's overreach, like if I ever.

SPEAKER_00:

Look, if you're watching this uh podcast or you watch my channel, my videos, you know, and you're a police officer. The only thing I would say, I mean, look, I I know it's not an easy job, and I know there's a lot of quick decision making, and sometimes it can be rough. I I get that. I understand that. But you gotta use your damn common sense, guys. Come on. Like, you know, the guy has the freaking permit, you know, he's trying to do the right thing, he's telling you he's got a gun. You know dang well that a criminal is not gonna sit there and tell you he's got a gun. That's right. He's gonna hide it, he's gonna use it, he's gonna run from you. You got a person who's being compliant with you, they're trying to be cordial, they're trying to treat you like a human being, and then you do some shit like that. How do you expect people to actually want to go out of their way to even obey the law if you do those kind of things to them?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's like after a while, people can start thinking, well, well, dang, do the police, you know, are they are they insane?

SPEAKER_01:

Knowing that if you were, if you didn't have any of those licenses and they arrested you, you'd be out in 10 minutes with cashless bail. Like that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00:

You can treat people like that. Okay, and and I think that, you know, there is a two-way street to all of this. I mean, like someone's just doing a job, I get that. You know, when whenever I have a conversation with law enforcement, um, you know, if I get pulled over or something like that, I'm always cool. You know, I don't talk about the traffic stop. I talk about, hey, how's life? How's things going? You know, I I just I just try to make them feel secure. I don't want them to ever feel like I'm being a jerk or anything like that. Whatever they're gonna do, like if they're gonna write me a ticket, then then write the ticket. I I'm not concerned about ticket, I'll pay the stupid ticket. I don't care about that. But it's like in my in my mind, like, you know, I've gotten pulled over before. If it's a Sunday, I'll be like, oh, you drew the short straw to work on Sunday. And they kind of chuckle. It's like, you know how it is. You know how it is being involved in bureaucracy. Someone gets extra duty or someone has to work on a day that they know they shouldn't have to work on, like, well, your leave for Sunday is canceled because we need someone to guard this stupid ammo pile over here or something. You know, like someone gets tagged for that, that deal that uh detail. And and yeah, no one wants to do it. Some people volunteer for it, but usually it's like, all right, draw straws, bridges, and and it's like, oh damn, I gotta guard this stupid ammo pile all day. I mean, so that kind of stuff happens.

SPEAKER_01:

But but there are there are advantages to that, and that's like um get any day off you want. Yeah, so uh great uh an example is when we were in Iraq, uh, I was younger, I didn't have any like family, I wasn't married, I didn't have a wife, I didn't have a girlfriend at the time. I was a young dude, I was just out living life. Um didn't you go to Qatar? I did. I got to go to Qatar, Doha, and Dubai, but that was because I volunteered like four times to push my leave back. Because at least when we were in every rotation, every soldier gets two weeks back home. Like you would get to go and fly back home for 15 days and then come back. But I didn't have any family, and the all we had a lot of people in the platoon that had like kids and wives and stuff, so I just kept pushing it back. They were asking, Hey, does anybody want to? You know, every time my I would come up, I was like, Oh, give it to some somebody else, give it to somebody else. And then finally we ran out of people to give it to. So I had to take it, but in between those times, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Here's a little three-day passion. Yeah, he gave me like uh You kept leaving on those three-day passes, like dang man, what the hell I gotta do to go to freaking cutters.

SPEAKER_01:

I would keep I would keep getting to go out to these like little, you know, little three-day passes because I keep I'm giving up my two-week leave. And you know, so to your effect, like there are some advantages to doing that. Um there are, but also there's some disadvantages because also in the military you learn that if you're too good at your job, you get chosen to do it every single time. They no longer ask for volume.

SPEAKER_00:

If you volunteer for too much stuff, then you're kind of known as a guy who's willing to volunteer. Therefore, they'll peg you for something knowing that they may not get a lot of pushback. You'll just be like, Yeah, I can do that. I don't have nothing else going on. The path of least resistance is fine. I don't need to rest on Sunday, I don't need to go to church. We're good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'll if you're too good at cleaning the latrine.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that you know, our country is at a very important impasse as a society. And I think that, you know, more people are scrutinizing government overreach than ever before. And I think that, you know, there were times in the past where maybe certain subset of society was paying close attention to what was going on, and I think that that genie is out of the bottle big time. And I don't think they're ever gonna put that genie back. I I think that right now we're in a position where it's do or die, and I do believe that there are a lot of people in our government who are trying to do the right thing, and they've they are doing what they view to be the right thing and the moral thing, you know, um, including our president. Like, you know, I think that he got under or behind the curtain and saw a lot more going on than um than maybe he bargained for the first time around. And then, of course, you know, you exacerbate those uh consequences by trying to kill the man and everything in between and all this political violence. And then, of course, you know, Charlie Kirk getting shot. That changes everything because it shows that not only was the assassination attempt of Donald Trump, you know, not a fluke moment, but that this political and moral battle that we're fighting has real consequences, as Charlie Kirk and his family and the whole nation saw, uh, that completely changed the landscape of people's opinions on how they view these threats from especially the left, where they realize that these aren't just some disappointed teenagers talking about, you know, some crap in jest and not being willing or able to carry it out. We're talking people who are not only willing to carry it out, but have carried it out. And you have to approach that as a literal threat. You have to sort of increase your threat level in life to include uh people who you might have normally just written off as crazy, but now these people are not just crazy. They're hiding in the bushes and potentially going to shoot you if. They don't like you. And you know, you have to approach that in a very measured and careful manner. And, you know, do I want the National Guard in our streets? No, I don't. Do I want a safe society? Yes, I do. Now, where I live, luckily, things are cool. Like where we're at, nobody really gets, you know, gets on each other's nerves or bothers each other. I mean, there's a little drugs being thrown around in the area that I live in. There's a little bit of domestic stuff, spats and things like that. There's a murder here and there. I mean, just like any society is going to have people murdering each other. But generally it's safe to walk down the street. It's it's safe to exist in society. You know, everybody's cool, you know, to everybody. And it's generally not too big of a deal. Now, I'm lucky that I live in kind of a more rural area of Georgia, it's kind of off the beaten track a bit. So it's not quite so bad here. Now, I could see where someone's results and and and what they see, it may vary depending on where they live at the in terms of how crazy some of this stuff is on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, and you know, I agree. I think that you know there has to be some level of um you know government interaction. I can't agree with the way that it's being done. Uh it definitely has an air of of overreach and Toltarian effect. Um and you know, we can't allow it. As much as as much as you know, someone would agree with it, like, oh, they're they're just they're just getting out the illegals. But and I I agree they are is it gonna stop there? Exactly. You cannot let allow the government to put their foot in the door, just like with anything else. If we if we compromise on anything, whether it's the second amendment, the first amendment, if you allow them, them being the government at any point to put the foot in the door, you've lost. You lost because it will not stop at the foot. The foot will turn into the leg, the leg turns into the upper body, next thing you know, doors wide open. So, guys, even with this, with the whole like um, you know, detentions and black bagging and scooping people up illegally, even if you don't agree with the illegal immigration or you do, you have to not agree with the way that it's being done. Because who's to say that it stops at illegal immigration? Who's to say it doesn't turn into a red flag and say, oh, that guy's got a gun? And next thing you know, the the old guy that has a revolver is getting blackbagged and taken to a black site. And uh people say, Oh, you're jumping to conclusions, but I'm telling you, that's how it starts.

SPEAKER_00:

What happens when the left is in power again and now they result to these same tactics for a completely more asinine and crazy reason? Yep. That's what gets me is like imagine if the left was engaging in these types of tactics. And imagine if their reasoning was, well, you're a veteran who owns who owns guns, and you know, we're worried about right wing extremism. Like, you know, even the FBI put out documents about all of this, calling us, you know, potential threats and things like that. It's like, what? I mean, to think that that pendulum can just swing in the other direction just that quick in just a few short years, and now the same people who were rounding up these illegals, now they're going around trying to round up gun owners or they're trying to round up Christians or whatever they decide. I mean, uh, at that point, do you really want them to have the ability to do that? I mean, I guess that's what people ultimately have to ask the question. If you see the government carrying out force, and let's say that that force benefits you, you're like, oh yay, they're getting illegals, okay, all good and fine, but bear in mind that that same force will eventually be used against you. Okay, so just because right now the people you like are in charge doesn't mean it's always going to stay that way forever. So I think the only way to completely solve the issue is to remove the ability of the government to, you know, engage in such overreach. Um so it's a sensitive subject, and I know people have a lot of different views on it. Uh, I know my views are similar to yours. I don't agree with it, but at the same time, you know, what are we what are we gonna do about the illegal situation? I mean, like, if you don't directly combat the threat and your society, again, your your beautiful uh half a coke just starts getting nasty water dropped into it, it's like, well, this isn't a coke anymore. At what point is the entire, you know, sacred pact of your society even realized if if you just allow people to just come in completely unvetted? Like, is that not an invasion?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, that's an invasion.

SPEAKER_01:

It is, and what I'd like to remind everybody, and I know it gets beaten to death, especially on you know social media and long-form con um long form con form content, is the the poem from the the German pastor Niemoller. And I'm sure you've heard it. It's uh first they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me. So if you just think about the context of that poem and what it means, it can play out even to this day. So it doesn't matter if you're on the left or the right, or you're a libertarian or an anarchist or whatever it may be, you have to look at it and say it you can't stand for government overreach um in any form because if it's used for you, it can be used against you. It just depends on which side of the glass you're looking for.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. It is absolutely true. Um, I appreciate everybody watching today's show. Uh, remember that we post every, well, we've been posting on Sundays uh lately, and that seems to work out well.

SPEAKER_01:

It's been great.

SPEAKER_00:

A lot of folks like the Sunday release. So we're probably gonna stick with the Sunday release uh moving forward, y'all. Uh so Sundays around uh 9 a.m. uh Eastern Standard Time each week, you can find Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit on uh YouTube and video form, as well as where all of your favorite podcasts are found. Um, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, etc. Anywhere you can find podcasts, we're there. Uh so we have a really dedicated listener base in terms of downloads, but also a lot of dedicated viewers. So if you want to watch the show in video form and see our ugly mugs, you can do so over on YouTube if you wish to uh or listen in, download. Uh, feel free to drop us a good rating that helps us show up in the search results. I'd be much appreciated, much obliged if you would do that. And uh I think, you know, honestly, Matt, I think you said everything. I don't really have anything to add. Um, I know this is a sensitive topic. I'd like to know what some of you think. What do you think about this government overreach? Is it overreach, or is it just the government doing the job that you put them there to do? And if so, if you believe that, are you okay with the same uh force being used against you one day? It will happen. You know, pit for pat, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. I mean, are you game for what may come in the future uh from an unfriendly administration? I'd like to know what you think. Uh, many more podcasts on the way. Thank you all so much. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_01:

Stay classy, San Diego.

SPEAKER_00:

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 five star review. We'd really appreciate that. You can support us over on Ballistic Inc. by picking yourself up to merch. And remember, guys, dangerous freedom. Have a good one.