BigDeal - #47 I Worked in the Most Dangerous City in the America's

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

🚀 Main Street Over Wall Street is where the real deals get done. Join top investors, founders, and operators for three days of powerful connection, sharp strategy, and big opportunities — live in Austin, Nov 2–4. https://contrarianthinking.biz/msows-bigdeal In this intimate conversation, Codie and her husband reflect on their recent successes and delve into personal growth. They explore the complexities of human experiences, including sharing her personal stories from her time along the US-Mexico border. The discussion emphasizes the ethical responsibilities of journalists, the complexities of intervention in both reporting and real-life situations, and the challenges faced by service professionals. They highlight the historical and cultural dynamics various people, the fragility of societal structures, the nature of evil in human behavior, and the importance of understanding human experiences and the impact of individual actions within larger societal contexts. Want help scaling your business to $1M in monthly revenue? ⁠Click here⁠ to connect with my consulting team. Chapters 00:00: Celebrating Success and Community Engagement 02:54: Reflections on Personal Growth and Literature 05:46: Exploring the Depths of Human Experience 09:11: The Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Crime 11:55: Understanding the Border Dynamics and Human Stories 15:05: The Tragedy of Transience and Abandonment 28:10: The Weight of Journalism's Impact 32:03: The Ethics of Intervention in Reporting 35:54: The Dilemma of Bystander Intervention 39:47: The Challenges of Service-Based Professions 41:10: The Complexities of Kurdish Identity and History 52:40: The Fragility of Civilizations and Societal Structures MORE FROM BIGDEAL: 🎥 ⁠YouTube⁠ 📸 ⁠Instagram⁠ 📽️ ⁠TikTok⁠ MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ: 🎥 ⁠YouTube⁠ 📸 ⁠Instagram⁠ 📽️ ⁠TikTok⁠ OTHER THINGS WE DO: 🫂 ⁠Our community⁠ 📰 ⁠Free newsletter⁠ 🏦 ⁠Biz buying course⁠ 🏠 ⁠Resibrands⁠ 💰 ⁠CT Capital⁠ 🏙️ ⁠Main St Hold Co⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the Big Deal podcast, husband. Wise. Peckis. How are you? How are you? Big week. Big week. I thought this would be kind of fun. Actually, Tanner thought this would be fun. It was Tanner's idea.

But the reason that we were going to do this podcast is to talk about all this pretty shit that's going on this week. I'm going to go first. Cool. Please. Book tour. Cody Sanchez, the financial expert who has more than 7 million followers across social media. She had the new book, The Instant New York Times, Bestseller, Main Street Millionaire.

Book is out. Top spotted hit was 91 on Amazon, which was first author in the family. Main Street Millionaire, first author of the family. That's huge. That's a big thing to live up to now. That's pretty cool. We didn't sleep a lot this week. We went on all these today shows, which was rad. I've had more face paint on than probably ever before. Also got an IV today while getting my hair done and makeup done, which was like peak.

just peak too much, really. It's great. Overconsumption. Just, yeah, not great. But I thought we could hit some of the highlights, because there were some cool things that happened this week. Like, first of all, met, I don't know, a couple hundred people who are part of our community,

buying businesses, bought the book, had the biggest Barnes & Noble signing at this one Barnes & Noble in New York, I don't know about anywhere, which was kind of sweet. Realized book signings take fucking forever. Long time. Yeah, I bet your hand,

cramp was like obscene next level. There was mostly like a mouth. Like I just didn't want to talk at all. You were on the whole time. You were engaging in conversation. Because they were cool. It was the cool people. I was proud of it.

It was very impressive. Yeah, it was like every type of human represented there. Okay. But what I actually thought that I talk about is, do you know we outsold Martha fucking Stuart? No. Are you serious? Yeah, that bitch.

You know who we did not out sold sell, though, is Jordan B. Peterson. Beat us. Jordan's been out for a while. Plus, he's like, brilliant. Speaks to Generals. of young men. Yep, yep, yep, yep. So Martha, just saying,

we're coming for you. We're not coming for you in the kitchen because you know, that's not my strong with you. That's yours. Dude, I would love to learn from the master. I think you should have a cookbook. Me?

Yeah. The lazy man's cookbook? No, like hairy chested cooks. Find her heart through her stomach. Yeah. It'd be a good one. Yeah, I'm into that. Absolutely.

I think it is just like a slow, it's like a slow, slow process where you just end up changing the ingredients over time, so then you have your partner essentially eat everything that you already eat? This sounds like you might be really familiar with how to do this to somebody. It works. I love it. I don't hear any complaints.

No complaints, because I don't know how to do this. And it made me think about books overall. And, like, I don't know about you, but, I mean, mom and dad, you're listening. I love you both. You know this is true, though. Mom gives these gift baskets that are like... Highly functional. She's

Yes They're like Sox Body Wash A razor What else might be in there I had those Little spongy things

That you put Between your center console And your car seat And I think of her Every time that I readjust them And every time I don't lose my wallet Or my phone

In the cracks You're trying to suck up to her But I feel like she watches QVC It just goes I like this And I like this. And I like this.

No, no. These are way too. These are, I don't, I'm actually, would be really interested in the source of these purchases. Walp-Bor? Because these are too, these are way, way too inexpensive to be on QDC. Like you have to have a price point. Like, you have to sell.

You have to get product through the door. That's true. I don't know. $6.55 for seat capture spongers. Yeah. You also got two years of like very potent smelling body wash, which maybe she was trying to tell you yourself. I think it's a signal.

You a little smelly? No. Am I? No. You smell delicious. It smelled like a man. So I thought I'd go with, lately I've been asking this question I kind of like,

which is what is the book or a few books that you personally keep going back to and read it? Yeah. I would start with a book that I got introduced to by a dear friend a few years ago when I was looking for what was next in life out of transitioning out of the military. and that was the surrender experiment. Oh, yeah. It was just like this great book about this accidental entrepreneur who started as like a community college professor

and devout yogi and meditator in central Florida. And he, you know, came to stumble into, he makes it feel like this entrepreneurial journey where he was one of the first pioneers in software. And how he didn't sacrifice his morals. He didn't sacrifice. Like, his paradigm jadot shift, he was the same man. It felt like at the end of his journey from what at least he communicated in the book.

Great book. All right. So surrender experiment. Yeah, the other one I would say is Dune. I come back to Dune a lot. Yeah, you do. Do we should reread that book? It's fucking huge.

You read that thing? I don't reread it in its entirety. So what do you do? I almost kind of treat it like. a cookbook or like the Bible where you just like go between chapters and I just random you just kind of I have notes and like I have a lot of pages like dog ear

and some things highlighted or some notes on the margins I think it's an incredibly important book for a person who feels that they don't have the power to change to have impact because of their station in life you know he was

the proposed prince of his father's dynasty and then he became the walking Messiah of a, you know, almost forgotten people. Yeah. And, you know, you've seen the movie or read the books, you know that it was done with like immense, immense strife and sacrifice and just a testament to, I think, a human well. Do you think you like it because you fought wars in the desert and it is wars fought in the desert? Maybe. I think it speaks a lot to my generation, especially the global war on terror vests.

I think it speaks to the impact a person can have in their own life. And I think it speaks to the fact of belief in a system, not a system. Let's say belief in your personal virtues. Yeah. Right? Like you can't lie to yourself and lie to what people, I don't think. I think it's pretty impossible. I don't know if I agree with that.

Like that is what people do who run people typically. Really? They lie to themselves and light of people? Yeah. I think we're great self-rationalizers. Yeah. I don't think that many people think they're evil. Mm-hmm.

I think they're right, you know? And they, like, can talk themselves into being the good guy, even when they're the bad guy. You know? Yeah. It's like, they deserve it. They didn't need this. I'm better. But I'm not sure.

I've never been to war, so I can't imagine that part. But I do remember your last. deployment, I reread Dune, and I always like that part where they talked about fear as the mind killer. Yeah. And that whole quote. And I remember when I was hiking Mount Baker, and it was like that snowy whiteout or whatever, and we had the clampons or the crampons, whatever the fuck.

And we're on those roads, ropes, and the ice picks, and people had falling all around and the little mini crevasses. That was so miserable and freaked out. and I don't like heights and we were and you know I didn't want to go any further and I kept repeating that phrase which is like fear is the mind killer you know let it pass through you and and I thought of you yeah so yeah I like that book a lot you know what's the other song that I listened to a lot when you were in deployment what song iron wine remember that oh yeah uh what's it called walking far from home walking far from it's a beautiful song it's such a good song he is a great he's a really interesting background too he's like a professor of film like you University of Florida. It's so good. And he's been just this incredible artist as well. Yeah.

Why? Why that song? Because I would thought about you. You're like walking far from home. And he kind of talks about, you know, iron and wine. And I remember, you know, I think of iron. When I think of like steel and iron back then, you know, as he was talking about, it would have been like a sword, but you got a different type of sword.

That was a gun. You know, think about like late nights and like a foreign country with like a bottle of wine. Just, yeah. I wish we had the full of wine. That would have been great. Missed you. Missed you too. Okay, so we go to...

Books. Your turn. Oh, mine. Yeah, you got to tell me. Which ones do you reread and go back to? You know, which one I reread is Chantaram. Yeah. There's no way.

You reread 1,200 pages. I don't think it's that long. It's itch. You're right. I probably reread that every couple years. But it's one of those books where you can lose yourself in it. And I always go back to, you know the story I'm going to go to. Absolutely.

So why I think that labor is so important is I remember the story in there about the, and I reread it when we last went to India because it's about a man who escapes Australia, kind of loosely based on a true story, but with like spiritualism intertwined into it. And he's a convict and he killed somebody, manslaughter on an accident, goes to prison, escapes prison, goes to India and gets caught up in India and organized crime until finally he comes to like spiritual awakening. And it's a true story of this man who eventually goes back to Australia. to pay recan pets for his crimes and then goes back to India after that.

And anyway, the story is beautiful. And it's also beautiful if you're going to India because it's like this perfect picture. But there's this one story about how the guy, the Australian, is like taking a shower and like a really shitty hotel. And he's like three stories up or whatever in the shitty hotel. And it's so hot there and there's no air condition. He's like taking three or four showers a day. And he has a little guide with him who's a young Indian. dude and and one day he gets up really early with his guide and he sees these guys hauling you know these

huge barrels of water on their back up the stairs and he's like oh my god that looks so miserable what are they doing and he's like well they're you know his guide says well they're filling your your shower of course and he's like oh my god i'm so sorry i had no idea that that's what they had to do to fill my shower i'll never shower again and his guide kind of freaks out and it's like what do you mean you should shower six times a day look at these guys you're going to giving them labor and work, look how strong they are, look at them be able to provide for their family. And I always go back to that

because I'm like, that is a perfect example of what people don't fucking understand when they think about capitalism's bad and labor's bad and they're taking advantage of people. It's like, no, to give somebody labor is so beautiful because it gives them an opportunity to be

needed, useful, and then to provide for others. Yeah, it's a huge perspective shift. And I think it's like you have to consciously, like when you look at In my beliefs, if you look at socialism and or communism, that is a structure that has to be attended constantly. Yeah. Whereas capitalism tends to right size itself. And I think that is a perfect example of the trickle-down effects of what happens when there is an exogenous effect and somebody decides to, like to.

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So we decide to, you know, I don't know, mess with the system. Yeah. Yeah. Basically good ideals, bad outcome. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. Well, actually, I was kind of thinking about that because this week, or was it last week, I had sort of tweeted about Wara's at my time along the border. And I had talked about it before, but I think I got pissed.

And, you know, sometimes I think both of our best, like, writings happen when you're really mad or worked up about something. And I was really mad because a bunch of people were talking about. how open border policies are kind, and I don't believe that at all. I think it creates massive tragedy and violence, and so I was writing about my time down there when I was in college, you know, and how I spent a period of time

along the U.S.-Mexico border in Juarez, which is a city across from El Paso, right? And, you know, it was interesting is, like, you and I haven't even talked about it that much. Yeah, we haven't. But... What means you be able to be? down there in the first place.

I got a grant from the Howard Buffett Foundation. Okay, but like... Oh, like what made me want to? No, but it's like, okay, so you get a grant, so you're like, I'm going to go cover narco trafficking on the border. Like, not like, oh, I'm going to go trek snow leopards, right? Or I'm going to study the, you know, I don't know, effects of, you know, water restriction or resource restrictions, you know, in the Southwest.

You chose to cover narco trafficking. I don't know. I find it fast. Did you apply, sorry, go ahead. No, tell me. Did you apply for the grant with the understanding of like, this is what you want to do, or did you get to grant? And then you're like, this is what I'm going to do with it. Yeah, you got the grant first.

Basically, I was in the, what was it called? Journalism school? Yeah, Walter Cronkite School for print journalism. And, you know, it was a good school for that. Arizona's not the Harvard of the West. But anyway, and I started working with the dean of the Walter Conkite School. because I liked writing and it was in one of her classes and did well, whatever, and she told me to apply for it. And there was a group of us that all did it and we could choose different segments that

we wanted to focus on. And I just, I think that maybe it's similar to you in some ways. I find it fascinating to go and see people that I cannot understand. Right. Like I don't actually understand why someone would rape and mutilate a woman along the border continuously. Like I don't understand why you would want to be in a cartel with a bunch of other cartel members that are violent and hurt you too and have a high probability of going to jail. Like, that's just such a different world than me. Yeah. And I think part of me I'm just massively curious about humans and like the depths we can go to depravity and the heights we can go to, you know, heavenliness. Yeah. And so I wanted to see the full breath of humanity. And so money, like similar to you, money,

actually never interested me when I was young. I really just wanted adventure. You know, my favorite book was Adventure Capitalist, which is where he, like, rode a motorbike all around the world. And that's how I ended up setting that business up in Latin America. But back then, I wanted to tell stories that nobody else had covered before, and I found that adventure fascinating. And I liked that, like, slight sense of danger for whatever reason.

And so, yeah, that's why I ended up going down there. another woman, Courtney Sargent, went with me for part of it, and she was my photographer. Yeah. And I remember. Why just part of it? Did she not last as long? No, we had the different assignments. I would go down some places.

She would go down. Okay, got it. No, I think she's still a journalist. And what was it? Was it just like, I'm going to observe and report? Or was there some distinct element that you wanted to cover or like bring to light? You know, what I found is like when you're observing things, things will just like emerge. So I went down there originally.

Usually you start with a who. So I had this guy, Gil, Gill and Water, who had something in Alaprietta. Rancho Felice was the name. There's a non-profit. It was a really cool idea. So basically, Gil made a bunch of bunny in real estate. Becomes kind of spiritual.

Becomes buddies with the Dalai Lama, of all people. Starts this nonprofit in Mexico called Rancho Felice. And the idea is this. You get a house in Rancho Feliz if you help somebody else build theirs. And so it is a self-fulfilling nonprofit in that they have to be profitable. They have to help each other. They have to have jobs inside of the nonprofit. They can't let anything go into neglect or they get kicked out of the community.

So it was kind of this like capitalistic nonprofit. Anyway, I thought that was cool. So I started with him and was like, he's got all these connections down there because I didn't know anybody and I spoke Spanish but not that well. And then we were in all with Prieta for a bit and that was kind of wild because I remember it being real cold there during the winter and none of those places have heat right so korty and i are like sitting by that propane tank and you really shouldn't do that all night so one of us had to stay up but anyway that's where we started getting a few connections and all our

preno wasn't that dangerous so we started there but then we realized if we wanted to cover interesting stories like you know things that were headline stories we need to go to the bigger city yeah so then we went to Juarez and el paso and the moment that i knew i wanted to cover what was happening there never forget. When you come from El Paso into Juarez, you cross the Rio Grande. There's a bridge that goes over the... Oh, yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah.

And back then, and I don't know if it's still there, but there was this cross on the Juarez side, big wooden cross, and it was covered with pink ribbons and tokens. And every single one of those was for a woman who was missing, Las Disapparacidas. Okay. And it was a big cross, and in my mind it's probably even bigger than it is,

but I remember it being like towering to me. And I remember looking at it and thinking, my God, like all these murdered women, you know, why? How? Who's doing this? And that as you walked the city, all along the city you'd see crosses like little memorials with, you know, like the sun's wedding or whoever. And pink little pamphlets of the missing women. And when I saw those, I was like, how? How can so many, like, beautiful young girls just go missing and nobody cares?

And it's like right there. It's like Stone's Thrill from El Paso. You know, how could that be? But does you, when you look at it, though, was it just a different social dynamic, like, not caring? Like, people grieve differently. People value human life differently. Do you think they had just become so socially conditioned to seeing it happen that it was, like, not a factor of if but when? I think that darkness, or like, I think that, I think that bad things love darkness.

Bad things love darkness. Like operators go out at night, right? Why? Because like the cover of darkness, I don't know why, but it's just easier to operate when things are opaque. And the interesting part about Juarez is that most of the people who were there are transient. So they have these big maculagoras, the factories there, right? where U.S. companies manufacture like Home Depot parts, Lowe's has big maculadores. We went in many of them.

And they're like these, you know, assembly lines where they bus in women predominantly because the men fought too much. So it's almost all the workers in there would be young women. So they're docile. They don't fight. They get paid less. There's no cartel, like, activity there because they're young women. They bust them in from these, like, little shanty towns. Most of these women aren't even Mexican.

They're like from Central America or South America or they're from South Mexico. Oh, wow. Okay. So it's a really vulnerable population where these women are getting sent up north because they can make money and send it back to their family. And the money is real for their family that they can send back. So they don't commute. They're there the entire or they're there for extended periods of time.

They're there for extended periods of time. A lot of them are trying to get to the U.S., right? This is like a stop off on the way to try to get to the U.S. Or to make money in the meantime. But they are super vulnerable because they don't have family, you know, or if they do, family gets separated easily there. And so I think there's this opaqueness there where, like, you know, you usually would know everybody in a small town, and there you don't,

because you have all these people funneling through. And then you have a bunch of people trying to cross the border there. It's one of the most poorest sections of the border in an urban area. I don't know if that's still the case, but at least it was back then. And then for whatever reason, it's like where the Sinaloan and the snoring cartel were budding heads. And so they were at war, basically, when I was down there. And I was reading that, like, last year, 2,000 people were murdered in Juarez.

Last year, then. Last year, which is crazy. When I was down there, they said that during that three-year period that I was there, I wasn't there for three years, but, like, that rolling three-year period, 10,000 people were murdered. I mean, I remember jail breaks from the local prison where they brought in a fucking Apache helicopter to break somebody out of the prison.

One of them. We're at the cartel members? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. It's like, where does a fucking cartel get in a patchy helicopter? How does that happen? They buy it? Like, because that's from us, right?

I wouldn't even begin to nowhere. I think you would probably buy it on the black market somehow, and I have no idea. I don't know. Oh, we got to look that up. Maybe that's why the budget is so big for the Department of Defense. Why? Because everything. Because everybody's just kidding.

Everything, it's like, don't they say that, like, they have gun? They say that Americans have X number of guns, but like 30 to 40% of them in Mexico. Like, they don't, they're not even all in the U.S. I don't know what the number is, but I know that there's, like, a significant percentage. Well, I mean, just for, like, we all are aware of the gun violence that goes on in Mexico. Oh, yeah. And there's supposedly one single gun store in the entire country, and it's on a military base. Yeah, so they're not getting their guns for Mexico.

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completely forgot. And so you think it's a matter of resources that solves it before ideology? Fuck yeah. I think money is protection and I think money is freedom. And, you know, why do we think that people who have less money have more violence committed against them? You know, why do they go to jail more often? I don't think it's because they are poor and bad. It is because they don't have as much protection. It's a result of the kind of the socioeconomic status? Absolutely. You know, I think that saying of like when you have something to lose, you know, you are more thoughtful on it is true. Yeah. And so it took me back to that. And I kind of want to go back to the border to see like what I remember and what's real, you know? But. So your stance on this is a little bit,

so if I can just extract it a little bit more, is you think that the open border policy lends itself to more crime. It lends itself to more people being taken advantage. It leads to exploitation. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I remember you would just drive, like, not very far outside of Juarez, and the wall just ends. We could just, like, hop scotch back and forth along the wall for fucking miles. You know, Neftali Fuentes, a guy that I wrote the story about, a story about when I was down there, he had said he had crossed the border like a hundred times or something like that. I imagine it's not even that much.

Now that there's people who've done at thousands. Yeah. Well, probably, yeah. How'd it's been? Yeah, and I don't know how it's changed, but, like, it was really common back then. And he would get caught sometimes and shit, but, like, it kind of didn't matter. Yeah.

And... One side or the other. They were just kind of released regardless. Yeah. And they had a couple organizations down there that would help people in the interim. So you kind of get the same, like, starter pack every time you got back from the border

so you could kind of get yourself set up again in Mexico. But, you know, I just saw such tragedy there because people are not kept track of, and there's so much transientness. And that, I think, is where a lot of... terrible things happen. You know, and like where else in the world do you see the, like, hundreds and hundreds of women every single year being raped and murdered and left in the desert?

I mean, this happened for decades there. And I think a large part of that is because there's a huge border crossing and there's all this friction. I mean, some of those deaths have to be because of things Americans have done too. And so, so, yeah, it takes me back there and simultaneously reminds us. me why it's so important that we all try to figure out how to get a little bit more freedom and protection. And, you know, and I remember talking to a lot of the immigrants that were, we would help them before border crossings and write some stories about there's a series of

old folks' homes down there. And so a lot of people would drop off their elderly citizens at these really derelict old folks' homes before they were going to try to cross into the U.S. because they knew they wouldn't, the elderly person, wouldn't be able to make it. Yeah. And then you would send back money to try to take care of them. But a lot of times you'd lose contact. They would, and, you know, I met multiple people like Carmelita

who hadn't seen her family in, like, 10 or 20 years. So she was like all by herself in this, like, derelict place and subsisting off of like nonprofit, you know, cash. No way. Oh, yeah. So there's this, also there's like essentially, like, generations, right? Because there's a lot of children getting sent over because they have to be cared for, right?

Yeah. And then there's the adult or, working class or working age of men and women who come over for to join the, you know, the workforce here in the U.S. I never even thought about where the grandparents or where the elderly or where the, you know, first generations fall in line. Yeah. Back then, you could look at one of those stories we wrote about that won a couple of words

was he looked at the U.S.-Mexico border. And what didn't make a lot of sense is as you looked at it, that the age demographic was really old. The border region was more red, if red represented old, than most of the country. And the reason why was because a lot of these people were getting left behind. They called them Los Abandonados. And they were the abandoned generation. And so we wrote a series of stories on that.

I think we were the first to break that story back in the day. But the part that I feel pretty guilty about from when I was young and dumb was just how excited I was to get some of the awards for that. story. Yeah. Like Las Disaparacidas stuck with me more because I saw. Because you're a young woman. Yeah, I'm a young woman. And I saw brutally murdered young women and just those images and the smell of a morgue will never get out of my nose, like fully. But that had been sort of covered before. So like it was so new to me, but had been covered. But the generation abandoned, that had never been covered before. No. I hadn't heard about this before.

I had no idea, especially living so close, you know, relatively to the border. To the border. Yeah. And so when we got those awards, and I went and took them back to Alloprietta, to the main person I wrote the story about, which, whose name was Carmenita, who was like 87 years old or so, but looked like 400 years old. I mean, these people, just the care is so bad. Yeah. You know, I have 99-year-old grandparents who look 20 years younger than this woman. And I remember her saying to me, you, now that America knows about this, about us, you're going to

help us, right? You're going to reconnect me with my family. And that always stepped with me too, because I was so young. You know, I wasn't going to be able to help her. And it was like, no, I know this is wrong. I know we could help, but we're not going to. What do you mean you could help? Like us as a nation, are you?

Us is a nation? me individually maybe, like people, citizens, I don't know, like any of those answers. But one, that wasn't what a journalist was supposed to do. I covered. I didn't influence. And then two, I knew that even though I wrote the story and we got all these awards, nobody was going to do anything different. Yeah.

Isn't there like a law in journalism where like don't intervene in nature? Like you see some of these incredible photographs, incredible striking, I think is a better word, right? where there's a young malnourished child getting circled by vultures, right? Or there's, you know, the famous one in Vietnam, right, where they're executing that on the street. I mean, a photographer's just snapping shots. And, I mean, there's countless others. Is that like a rule? Is that like an unspoken law?

I mean... You're supposed to be the quiet observer. You know, you're not supposed to... At least that's how I was taught. You were supposed to be the one who documents, not the one who does. and it's easy to become the target then because you choose a side maybe I don't think that's it's that it's what's happened to journalism today

it's like but they choose sides though in journalism that's what I'm saying but that's what's wrong I think God of it sounds better for you to it sounds valiant to choose a side and to say this is what I believe and I'm going to do this and I understand why people would do that but I think if you are a journalist

your job in as far as I thought it was was to tell what you see and really try to remove yourself. I remember the dean who edited all of my pieces would ridicule me for the first or second drafts because if there was any opinion in it, she was like, you are not, this is not an editorial, you are not an opinion writer.

You are there to observe and document and tell the stories factually to what you see as humanly possible and nothing else. That's so striking because in that short amount of time since then to now, everything's littered with opinion. I don't think you can find many without it. No, and in fact, when I was younger, I was, I thought I was pretty righteous.

Like, I was like, that's why I didn't stay in journalism. You know, I was like, I don't want to write the stories. Like, I want to change them. This is wrong. I want to tell them what's actually happening. And that's how I felt at the time, especially as like a young person so influenced by this. And she was like, this is not the, this is not the playground for that. Like, if you want to do that, that's somewhere else.

but it's not here. Yeah. And I think that's really important, you know? And kind of to your point, even like the nature photographers when there's like a little, you know, animal about to get murdered by something, it's like it's the circle of life you're not supposed to intervene, but that feels wrong somehow. No, I think, I mean, I think intervention is also top of mind,

considering what just happened a few hours ago. Yeah. Right? With Daniel Penny being acquitted. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think there was a generation of young men hanging on by a thread to what was going to happen on this. I mean, to hear, you know, he was a service member and to hear, like, I mean, she says a young man,

what happens when you see, like, violence or purported violence or threats, and then you're disincentivized from intervening? I mean, like, it's insane. And you hear these stories, like, our, you know, our friend in the security world, Spencer, Spencer Corson. You know, he's talked about times where you hear these cases where somebody, there would be, a domestic dispute going on, a man, like, just beating a woman senseless in public, somebody intervening, turns out, you know, it's a husband-wife pair that are, you know, drug addicts, boom, this guy gets sued, right, for assault. And she doesn't press charges on her husband, and, like, it just goes down. And so to see Daniel Penny, where something like that happens,

when he intervenes, you know, a man was still alive when police arrived, whatever happens at the at the scene of the incident, but at the end of the day, person protecting other people intervenes, and we put him through this incredibly difficult process. Now, what are we telling people who help other people? Yeah, I would love to see a movement for like a Daniel Penny law where it's like, give some protections, afford some protections to people who intervene.

And I mean, I know that would probably get tricky from the legal side of the house, because there's so many new, nuances and variables. But I mean, from a base level, at least now, I think young men are now saying, okay, opt out. Well, now opt out. I don't know. Because after this judgment, I think now it's like, okay, I'm not completely lost. That's true. But I guess they put that guy through hell. But again. Like, and if that was me, that woman on the subway, and no one came to my aid, could you even imagine, like, what an awful society. Yeah. No, exactly. And I think you

see it like from city to city, right? I mean, I don't think it was anything that we would find in Austin, Texas like that. It'd be interesting to see. You know, you kind of don't know, right? I say it now and I'm like, well, well, I would say it more like this. Like I remember the other day, you're just like, everybody thinks that they're going to do something and step in until it happens to them. Like, you know this. You've had many incidents that, you know, I won't say that, or somebody's done something bad, and you've just stepped up. You've been like, hey, something happened, it's not acceptable. I do not allow

violence to happen near me in this way. So I'll answer the call. But I don't think a lot of people answer the call. I think a lot more people than realize it. Like, isn't there enough? What's that phenomenon called? Tragedy to the Commons? Tragedy of the Commons.

Yes. But there's another one that's like where when something happens but there's a crowd, they assume that the other people are going to step in and they don't. Oh, I don't know. Well, we'll figure roughly.

somebody you'll tell us in the comments. But basically that's the idea. You're basically like, oh, somebody else will deal with it. Somebody else will deal with it. And that's how, like, terrible things happen in big groups. Well, mom mentality, but it's like the anti-s sounds like, yeah, it's like, because you can hide, you know, you can commit violence and hide amongst a crowd because if you're all guilty, no one is guilty. Yeah, exactly. But if you, but if you single out an individual for it. Yeah. Or you have, you make it the assumption that somebody else will intervene. Yeah. Well, I remember when I was a journalist in Phoenix, I did a ride along with a cop. And we got called to a house for domestic violence. And he was like, oh, we're going to X, Y, Z place. And he's like, it's this lady and this guy.

Like he knows it by the name. Yeah. It was like, oh, it's Sally and Tom again. And we get there, and let's call her, Sally, is like, beat to fuck. I mean, she is like bleeding. She is disheveled. He's obviously fucked up. And she's like, oh, no, you know, nothing happens here. And the policeman tried to talk her. And he's like, something obviously happened here. What happened? You know, you called us because she had called the police to stop him from being her to death.

But then when the cops get there, for whatever reasons, Stockholm syndrome or whatever, she goes back on it, which apparently happens a lot until the guy and, you know, whatever. So we had to leave. And I remember saying to the policeman, like, I'm like, obviously that man beat the shit out of her. what do we do? And he's like, listen, if they don't press charges and they don't, unless we see something happen where we have a right to take that guy into custody, we legally can't do anything. And no witnesses because she was the one that called.

And so there's nothing we do. And he's like, in the saddest part is he'll eventually kill her. Because that's what we see happen. Like statistically. That's terrible. Yeah. And that really stuck with me. And then I remember over the course that night,

The next place he got called was like a bar or something, and we picked up a homeless guy who just proceeded to piss all over the back of the police car while we were in it. You know, there's like the cage. Oh, yeah. And so the thing just fucking reeked. And then we have to drop him off. The guy's got to handle him and everything that he's got to clean out urine, like from all over the back. I mean, just, I can't think of a worse job, honestly, sometimes.

I hope we have a major switch in how we think about service-based jobs. I really, really hope that we significantly turn around how they're compensated, how we think about them. I mean, I think to the entirety. Like teachers, I mean, like your mom was a teacher for 30 years. Oh, my, and what she had to deal with on a daily basis. Like, I have so much respect for her and the fact that she was able to come home and be a wife and be a mother and be as, like, patient and as impactful as she was and still is. for you and your family? Because I don't, like, that would drain all.

Because think about it, like, how many unruly kids at times? Because, you know, special needs. And so not necessarily all of them were unruly, but they had to be managed constantly, right? Yeah. And so I could just imagine, like, how difficult it would be with one or two, and especially of your own, but, you know, a classroom full of 15, 20, even 10? Oh, yeah, that was tough. Plus, that was crazy.

Like, back in the day, I don't give her enough credit. I really should. It's 30-year special education teacher. to get up at five in the morning to go drive to Mesa, which is far from us, to be there at like 6 o'clock, so the school started at like 7. She had to prep stuff beforehand each time.

And she'd have for 30 years. And then back then special education was always in a trailer. Not only that, but it was like it wasn't diagnosed. They didn't separate. No, no, 100%. But also like the aptitude of the children. Oh, yeah.

It wouldn't separate them by whatever family. Yes. Yeah. I mean, she had one student who would like shove thumb tacks under her finger, and she would always find thumbtacks all over the waist, and so they'd be bleeding, like, just

crazy stuff. And, you know, another one that would get really upset and, you know, was a bigger kid. And so would start, like, screaming and ripping off their clothes and then, like, run around naked. And it's, you know, it was an elementary school and a middle school, so, like, young kids don't need to be seeing all those parts and stuff. And, yeah. Was, I mean, yeah, there's a support. infrastructure has to change.

Totally. People tell me how little teachers make. It's like you're paying this person, expecting them to be in new, like new contributing member of society, yet we treat them like, you know, at minimum wage levels.

Yeah, yeah. But she, I mean, she loved it for a long time. I think the reason she eventually got out of that, remember she told us was because they ended up wanting the teachers to restrain the children, like bodily restrain the children.

Oh, yeah, like the hug. She was saying at the power hub that they recovered that she was trying. She was just like, they were trying to train T.J. I'm not going to like put my hands on somebody else's kid. And, you know, I don't, I don't have any interest in that. And so she ended up retiring. But, man, I think, like, I thought I would have a bad day and then I call her, you know? Yeah.

You know what the story, though, that I think you should tell if you want is to remember, of course, remember. The story about the guy and the final night. And you're talking about that night when you had the military leader who had to kind of give up his land where his family and generations had fought and died kind of. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, in the semi-autonomous region of Iraq, known as Kurdistan, there was like a local military commander who had deep family ties. You know, his family had been there for generations. and he had built an incredibly successful telecomic company in the region that had enabled cell phone usage in the area that just like hadn't been available in the area for for decades, right?

Like lagging significantly behind modern infrastructure. And, you know, he was a Peshmerga leader and the Peshmerga are as the fighting force of the Kurds. and each man participates as, it participates in the Peshmerga. It's like compulsory service, but it's like 10 days out of every month. I mean, it doesn't matter what walk of life you come from. You know, you serve in the Peshmerga. And he had been a commander for the area, incredibly well respected, incredibly well regarded. And this was during the, like the counter ISIS campaign.

things. And later, you know, Iraq War, Operation Inherit resolve. And I remember the conversation that I had to had, I had with them because we were given in order to, like, leave our area, because there was, like, an internal skirmish from, you know, Iraqis and the Kurds. And essentially, this was towards the end of the conflict with ISIS, where they were declared military defeated in the country of Iraq and the Kurds and the Iraqis have butted heads for a really long time

they've had pushed a lot of disputes and that's like a nice way to put it if you go back and you look back on what was done by Saddam Hussein against an entire ethnic generation just awful. I mean, Kurds.

Yeah. And when you have a conversation with this man, these are other people that he had fought with side by side for the last few years. The Iraqis. Yeah, because now the Iraqis, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And they had a common enemy in ISIS. And I think the hope always was that these two groups would hopefully find peace, right,

in their want for a, like a peaceful, you know, to rebuild Iraq. And so this madehood wielded incredible power, who had incredible influence, extremely wealthy, just sits there the night before we leave and talks to us about how this is just an accepting factor of history in the area. What is an accepting factor? Because the Iraqis were pushing the Kurds further away back into, you know, traditionally older Kurdish territories, areas that they had bled and fought and defied. so that ISIS didn't, you know, move Eastern from, you know, Iraq through Kurdistan all the way to the Iranian border. Like, they had held their position. They have fought them off. And you see the Iraqi forces the next day turn their weapons at the people with whom they've been fighting alongside, you know, for the last few years. And a lot of these individuals, right?

men my age and younger, even a lot that were older, had not experienced the crimes against each other that their past generations were responsible for. And so it was, you know, a blood feud. It was we were bred and born to dislike one another. And I mean, there's a ton of politics

and ethnic dynamics that are at play, but you have this incredible, helpless feeling because you... This effort, This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what?

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. spend time and lives and resources thinking that people change their ways or at least the course of history might alter slightly instead of reverting back to what it's been because there was the defeat of a common enemy right there was like a common goal achieved with one another so basically the the peshmergen and the kurds helped the iraqi's defend against ISIS for years for years and the second that i ISIS becomes eliminated. The Kurds live on really valuable land. Yeah. A lot of resources. Yeah. I think the...

And the Iraqis come in and they take everything back from them. Yeah. So they wouldn't fight the hard wars. He'll let the other guys die for them. No, they fought the hard wars. They absolutely did. I mean, the Iraqis lost a lot of lives, you know, taking back Iraq from ISIS.

But this is an area that, you know, was extremely rich in energy resource. resources, right? I mean, it's like beautiful, green rolling hills. It looks like central California. Kurdistan. People don't realize. They think if it's just a, you know, forgotten desolate desert. It's not. It's a beautiful, like, thriving metropolis. And that's not very much of Iraq, right? That is a small portion. It's a small portion-ish, but it's like, it's more significant than you would imagine, right? And so Kurdistan, right? The Kurds live across, you know, Western Iran, uh, eastern. Eastern. northeastern Iraq, southern Turkey, and like northeastern Syria.

And, you know, they're treated like, there's a certain sect of Kurds that are treated like terrorists in Syria. The, you know, ethnic Kurds in Iran are, like, welcomed as their own in Iraq. It's still, like, a very heavily disputed area. And, I mean, when I say, somewhere autonomous, it's like, it's like the China and Tibet dynamic. Right? Not too dissimilar. I mean, you have like movie theaters and you have like restaurants and malls and you see like super cars like driving around and men are in suits like it's a in Kurdistan. In Kurdistan. It's a very like what is it like in the rest of Iraq? Not that, right? I mean the rest of Iraq is like

it's a very like it's a it's a poor country. It is not nearly as modernized. It's not, nearly like have the amenities that we do. And people also don't realize in Kurdistan, it's not all of one faith, right? I mean, you can be of many different denominations and many different faiths, which just like blows people's minds. And you won't get attacked. And you won't get attacked. You won't be persecuted. But elsewhere in Iraq, you would be. Absolutely. Yeah. The fun fact, the oldest continuously populated city in the world is the capital of Kurdistan or BIL Iraq. Yeah, which is where you were, right? Around there are other places, yeah

Oh, copy, right. Yeah, cut that out. Yeah. So you see this guy and you see resources, and so that's why I ask so many of these questions around it because, like, I saw a guy with resources. I saw a guy who changed. I saw him, exactly, I saw him be the leader of these people

who would do anything for him, who, like, fought and bled and stood there at the edges of existence, knowing full well that the people who were helping him might turn their backs on him, or would likely, if history had repeated itself as it did. And he had to go back to a life of which, how do put this, he wasn't revered by his partners for what he did. It was thankless. And he was taking advantage of.

And so I always wonder, right, like the preemptive. price of intervention. Yes. Yeah. I mean, for him, it's an existential threat, right? He has to. But at least for just once, had somebody allowed him not to live that fate. Just tough to see. Fair, you know. And then it crumbles into, you know, like a civil war type thing. And it's a messy, messy, messy subject.

You know what's interesting, too, is like, I say that money is the key to freedom, but it's like to a point, you know? It's like money, but also we really got to watch out for too much power in the hands of the government that that happens. I mean, I think hands of the government, but, you know, we talk about mob mentality, right? And I think we talk about the wills of people. I think you can earn your way into conservative. straights and in confinement in and of itself. Like getting on this hamstra. I was trying to get on this hamster. Right? Like, what was the old joke, you know,

in one of your old firms was like, like I want to buy a Ferrari? Yeah. I might do. Yeah. Lillity had to keep working. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I guess I think about it more like, I don't think most people realize in America. Like, if you've never seen the fall of a, of a civilization in some way, it's really hard to understand it. Like, when I saw it, like, when I saw, how quick companies fell in Argentina under Christina Fernandez, I was like, oh, my fucking, oh, my God. Like, everything that we have is actually super delicate and interconnected. And if we allow too few in positions of power to control everything, they can pull it all

away. Because it literally changed overnight. It changed, like, basically overnight. And it, like, happens really slow and that it happens way fast is what they say about recessions, too. Right. And, I mean, the history of Latin America is all about that, right? Yeah.

And, you know, and I saw the same thing, you know, happened. Like, I remember my brother was in Chile, like, locked up in his room. Remember during the... Oh, yeah. During COVID when they were having riots downtown all across. I mean, he couldn't leave and get anything out for, like, a couple weeks. And so, like, having seen that happen in those countries, I think I'm so much more protective of what we have here in America because it's fragile.

Yeah. And you saw it firsthand. Like, you actually... I wasn't in a center of power. I didn't know anybody in politics when I was, you know, seeing some of that stuff happen, happened there. You, like, actually engaged with the people who were running things and then had to watch it fall, too. I mean, it leaves a mark. Yeah.

No, absolutely. Because it makes me think about, like, you know, we talk, you know, we protect the house. Yeah. It's like, sometimes how? Sometimes how. Right? Or is it, like, are you complete, are you lying to yourself in terms of your ability to protect it all? Yeah.

I guess you do what you can with what you have. Yeah, watching civilizations crumble. Yeah, but I do think, like, everybody talks about, like, yeah, go travel and see the world, and it's like, yes, but, like, just because you've, you know, if you've been to Chicago, like, I remember when I lived in Chicago. Like, you're down on, like, the Miracle Mile. You're, like, at the merchandise mart. It's fucking gorgeous. Like, everything's great. If you only saw that area, you would never think that it was close to the, you would never think that it was close to the,

murder capital of the U.S. Because you never went south. And if you never went south, you never saw how close you were and yet so far from like a totally different world. And so sometimes I think like it's not actually travel that makes a difference. It's like experience,

you know? Yeah, I think people like to substitute those words oftentimes. They believe that their citizen. The coast can say that that their travel is an experience. And it is and of itself, right? But I mean, I still think it's important to understand what makes other cultures tick. Like I talked about earlier when you have people feeling about the disappearacies and Los Abandonados.

How do we view human life? How do we grieve? Because I would also argue that their system is better for elderly care, right? I mean, you take care of your grandparents. Yes. You take their entire families. Whereas us in the U.S., you know, we send them off. Their communal system is way better, yeah.

Their systemic nation-wide system, fucking awful. I agree. But they don't just let go of their elderly people. You know what it also made me realize? Like, I think I'd be curious your take, I think evil exists. I mean, there are evil motherfuckers that will do really terrible, terrible things. And it's hard to believe it if you have, ain't it? But it's our job to, like, protect against that if you have any resources at all.

Yeah, I mean, I say often, And I think you probably would agree since of what your experience is or as a journalist. But like, I don't think I'll, I don't think I'll be surprised by human nature ever again. You know what I mean? The ability for someone to do something just so evil and lascivious or just so offensive against another person or society or at large. And I hate that that's the view. Like, don't get me wrong.

I wish it was, I did. I wish it wasn't a view that I held. But it's very difficult to be proven, proven opposite. Yeah. I think you're a very optimistic, real. list. You're like, lots of shit can happen. Lots of good shit can happen too. Well, I love you. I love you. I've thought you exist in the world. Me too, you. I'm so proud of you. What a great week. Thank you. It's been fun. Yeah, I hope the book helps. I hope it makes a mark and people get a little bit more

pushback on freedom. I do too. We'll see. All right. See you guys next week.