The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1068: The State of the American Martial Class w/ Lafayette Lee

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

73 MinutesPG-13Lafayette Lee is a husband, father, veteran and proprietor of the "Ruins of Corotoman" Substack.Lafayette joins Pete to give his opinion on the state of the military and law enforcement in the US. They also discuss solutions for the short and long term, considering the condition of the culture.Ruins of Crotoman SubstackLafayette on TwitterLafayette at IM-1776VIP Summit 3-Truth To Freedom - Autonomy w/ Richard GroveSupport Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Lafayette Lee returns after a... It's been a while, man. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, no problem. Let's just jump right in. I listen to whenever you appear, I listen.

I try to read everything that you put out. I know that you, you're definitely someone in this space that is, I think you have a tendency to know where the Marshall class, where their mind is at. Is that inaccurate? Yeah, no, I think, you're right. I think that's kind of my, that's my sweet spot. Okay. Well, we were talking about on my live

stream yesterday, potential war with Iran. I'm looking at the people that Trump, people who are donating to Trump, the people Trump is surrounding himself with. I don't know that Trump would choose to go to war with Iran, but, you know, a convicted, a convicted felon can be, and somebody who, you know, their legacy can be hurt and their future can be hurt. can be somewhat compromised. So I'm looking at, I know that Israel wants a war with Iran. They've wanted it for a long time.

I don't know whether that's completely 100% true or not, the whole drone thing, them dropping drones in the desert so Iran could save face. Maybe you can speak to that. But we're having a discussion on the live stream with some of the people in the chat about the state of the military. and people have described the military as being woke, yet I don't accept the fact that most of that the guys who would be pulling triggers and firing off mortar rounds are woke.

So what's your take on the state of the military right now? Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because a lot of us in this kind of corner that we're over here, it's easy to get swept up and start to think that personnel, that their character or maybe the way that they view the world or their motivations are identical to whoever's steering the institutions. And it's just not true. Yes, there is definitely more wokeness in the military and there's a lot of pressure to embrace that

for career advancement and so on. And so you're going to see probably more folks in the officer class at least, maybe identify with that and at least pretend that they embrace it. But for the rank and file and for most people in the military, I still don't see it. And especially in your combat arms, there's a culture there that's going to take a long time to completely change. what most people in organizations like this will do is you just put your head down and wait you know you do things the best that you can you take control of the organization that you are in charge of you can affect a local culture in some ways similar to like where we're at here in the united states and then you know you kind of put your head down and wait i served under i've served under several

presidents. Obama was very different than Trump, for example. But I wouldn't say that because of many of the policy decisions that were being made by the White House or even by the generals, that that really reflected the rest of us or that we were really swept away or taken by those things. So I'm glad you brought that up because I think that, yes, what's happening to the military is detrimental. It is being hollowed out in many places. But it will take a very long time to indoctrinate. You catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive, by design.

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The Dream Kitchen? Check out at Cube Kitchens. Beacon South Quarter Dublin, where the smart shoppers go. Two hours free parking just off the M50, exit 13. It's a Black Friday secret. Keep it to yourself. The military, the rank and file. They just don't come from the people, the kind of people that serve just do not come from places that they are going to be taken in by these things. But because they're silent and they have to be, if you think about it, I think people have the perspective that they've kind of drank the Kool-Aid.

And I just don't see that. You know, I was talking to some gentlemen down here. We were meeting up in Auburn this past weekend, and they, you know, they know people or, you know, they know people in Fort Benning. And they're like, yeah, this, this isn't Fort Benning. This, if anyone, it is hitting the high ranking officers. But, you know, the guys, the guys doing the work. yeah, they're not a part of this. And I mean, I don't see how they could ever be.

I don't see, you know, now they're talking about drafting, you know, drafting women. And, you know, there was a big joke in the live stream chat yesterday about, you know, drafting, you know, cheniqua being, being out in the field, you know, just giving away positions. but just it was actually rather funny. But the, yeah, I don't, nobody I'm talking to when it comes to, you know, so gentlemen, you know, combat arms is like that. But you do have to take into consideration that if you have generals who are coming out and talking about their privilege, that you have to worry about these guys where

they're going to be sent, what the, what the objective is. and what the mission is if they are sent somewhere. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think it's a, it's really a sign of corruption. And, you know, using that almost like in a medical sense, like this woke stuff, what we call woke or whatnot, it's really, this is like what the infection looks like, what we can see.

But it's a deeper infection. I've argued for a long time that the, and I love the military. I'm one of those who still. I love it. I was glad I was part of it. I did a lot for me. I would never take it back. And that doesn't necessarily have a whole lot to do with foreign policy. It's just how soldiers think. It did a lot for me and I loved it. But at the same time, you know, there was a corruption there even before the really woke stuff started. This is just the latest

manifestation of kind of the same problem. Some of these things are problems that are just endemic to bureaucracy and the military has become really bureaucratized, even more so than it was when I came in, which still, it was difficult. But the corruption is the problem. And these generals, they are politicians. They're not like your average rank and file fighting man. And they will chase after the opportunities and ingratiate themselves to the political class

as much as possible, or at least align themselves in a way that can get them set up for a good job on the beltway when it's all over. That's what they're most interested in. So these are typically people who succeed in this fear at that level are people that do not have convictions. And that's something just to, I think keeping your back pocket as we try to analyze these things. Your junior officers, your backbone of the military, your NCOs, your enlisted men, they're going to be the kind of people with big hearts who served for a reason that do most often go beyond just opportunities.

right like these are people that are patriotic or it's a family tradition people that want to go and get their cut their teeth on some combat they like adventure uh whatever it is those things but typically i can put those under like a martial virtue and say that that's like a good thing right um but to succeed and rise to that higher level you almost have to have no conviction um you have to be a politician um and this causes a lot of problems like you mentioned i mean this is not a small thing um when we're talking about fighting wars when we're talking about fighting against near-peer adversaries like I do not discount the tenacity of the Taliban for example like that's not an easy fight but it's a very different fight to go up against Russia

to go against Iran or China and I think the unfortunate thing is that because our foreign policy establishment because our generals are very flippant about these things because they don't really have a historical sense that they are just well-polished bureaucrats that they can make very bad decisions that can get a lot of people hurt or killed and i think we got a small taste of that with the withdrawal from afghanistan i mean i supported the would i supported withdrawal from afghanistan early on but i think we all saw the way that that went down uh that's a small micro level of what could happen on a grand stage with these kinds of people in charge well let me ask you this about um

the force right now. My buddy Lee Enfield was on here toward the end of last year, and he was reading Army Warpapers, and they were talking about how when it basically comes down to it, the military has about 29,000 enlisted men for combat. And they were comparing that. They said, okay, So if it was those 29,000 out there fighting Russia and Ukraine, they possibly they could last two to three months if they're doing really well with incredible support. What is the military now? Is it completely relying upon air power, drones, intelligence? is there any thought for fighting for fighting a conventional war? Great question.

And Leah Infilt, a great guy. I think very highly of him. So his analysis, you can take that to the bank, I'm sure. I would say, from what I can see, and I came up in combat arms, so I'll just put that out there. So I have a little bit of a different perspective than maybe some. I think that I think the thing that we are. relying the most on, and this is a political thing, is that we are relying on alliances.

This is why and proxies. So we're relying really heavily right now on our alliances doing a lot of the heavy lifting. A good example of this would be like if China and the United States went to war, we are expecting that an ally like Vietnam, who the Chinese do fear, a very vicious rival, not a rival, but a very vicious competitor to China, China's a gemini in the region could do a lot of damage. So we're like relying on people like that, relying on Ukraine, for example, to do a lot of the dirty work to fight these conflicts. There's other aspects that we, you know, drone warfare is a big one.

There's a lot going on with DARPA, for example. So yes, the hardware and technology is a huge focus. The United States does very well with this typically, but it all comes down. down to this same problem, which I think we're all getting at. Everything depends on personnel. And I don't care who says otherwise. Everybody has predicted the end of the infantry, almost every generation. Some egghead comes out and says the infantry is going to be obsolete.

But that's just not true, especially in this world that we're entering now. You have to be able to fight and control land. You have to be able to fight and control space. You can do a lot of work with drones. You can do work with other kinds. of you know like you can have combined arms and do all sorts of things and be able to maintain control but at the end of the day like there's a human being involved in this and there are human beings on the ground that often gets overlooked as well you know we can fight all sorts we can

fight all sorts of ways um as distant as possible and not putting our our people at risk but we're still interacting and dealing with other people especially in large population centers. I don't know how you can anticipate the future of warfare without thinking about that. So at the end of the day, yes, your common grunt is still going to play a role. And I think that if we keep forgetting that lesson, we will keep losing. Right now, Washington's wargaming, like, how do we fight a two-front war? And if you only have that small amount of combat, you know, these are guys that can go out and take the fight to the enemy, shoot, move and communicate, take and hold down space and terrain if you only have a small dwindling number and that they don't

have the experience or the training necessary i mean you're really playing with fire at that point i mean look at our adversaries like you know we're not just talking about going in a full frontal confrontation with like russian for example but like look at africa um you know we have pmcs down there that are you know russian and that that's personnel and those personnel are interacting with locals and they're building proxies and they're building you know indigenous forces to do what they need to do this all requires competent people and i think if we forget that lesson uh it will be very deadly and we will have to learn that the hard way by feeding people kind of into a grinder again uh i would just draw people's attention historically to korea we kind of had to learn a hard

lesson in korea and luckily we learned it at the last minute and we're able to kind of um save the situation, but it took a lot of blood to get there. And we find ourselves at that same kind of opening of a new chapter that I think that we opened maybe in the Cold War with something like Korea. And it always ends up. A lot of blood and treasure gets squandered in the beginning because we have to relearn this age-old lesson. Ready for huge savings?

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28th to 30th of November. Liddle, more to value. There's so much rugby on Sports Exter from Sky, they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-backed with rugby. For the first time we've put every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup and much more.

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almost every 24 months exchanged fire. Mm-hmm. Like, there are actually fire fights between the two, and these people, they really don't like each other. What I wanted to go to was Iran, because, I mean, obviously, that's what everybody's talking about.

That's what Israel wants. Israel wants a war with Iran. They seemingly want Iran destroyed. You're probably like me. You've sat down with a topographical map of Iran, looked at the surrounding countries, and said, how do you even do that? I mean, considering where Tehran is set in the country, perfectly set, various mountain ranges that they have anti-aircraft, anti-arm, anti-missile, I mean, what are they thinking? Do they,

go for the nuke? I mean, what is the, why and how do you think they're thinking this? Man, that's a good question. And I struggle with this. I will be honest. I really have a hard time making heads or tails of some of the many, most of the decisions, let's be honest, most of the decisions in Washington are among that, you know, we have a, we still have a cohort of our foreign policy establishment that very much wants to see confrontations like with Iran or with Russia, others with China. And, you know, I have different feelings about each one of those. But altogether, I have a really hard time, especially with the old Middle East hands on what we want to do for being involved in that region. And Iran, I don't think Americans understand what a war with Iran would

look like this is not this is not the same as anything we have seen I mean the closest thing would be like a Russia Ukraine I mean we're starting to see an old kind of warfare start to come back and we're relearning old lessons and I mean that's that's something at the very least like whether you you know however you feel about it you should be watching it because this is how warfare is going to start looking but like Iran's not a lightweight and I don't think a lot of Americans understand that like that the whole like bomb Iran thing that we heard from like John McCain back in you know several years ago like when he was

still around and that it was just it was it was so cringe and it was hard to listen to because like it gives people the perspective that Iran's a lightweight that like you can just walk in there and it will you know oh the worst that could happen is it could be in Iraq but but Iran is not in Iraq and as you've already mentioned like there's geographic there's there's there's geographic barriers to Iran Iran also is highly sophisticated. We do not know what's happening in Iran like we do in other parts of the world. It also, and I think that people underestimate this, Iran has an excellent intelligence in the spy service. They're really good. They have been doing all sorts of work in the United States

for a very long time. They are here and they know what's going on. They're not stupid. They have have a highly educated population. They just because there's religious fanatics, in key positions of authority, you know, there's a lot of decision making that gets done in the heavy lifting that gets done by highly competent, very intelligent people that know the world, they're cosmopolitan, they understand how our government works, how our military works, and they have, they have heavy weapons, they have great weapon systems, they,

They are modern, like they are not a lightweight. And they know how to struggle through things. I mean, every time that there's a conflict and Iran starts having protests, there's always these people are assuming that the government's just going to fall. Now, I do think that there's always the possibility of that. There is a lot of dissent in Iran. So that's true. But it's just such wishful thinking when it comes to.

a place like Iran. Iran is a big country. It's a powerful country. It's a, the whole time that we've been having, you know, we've had our eyes on other parts of the Middle East or other parts of the world. Iran is in a, it has a rivalry with, you know, Saudi Arabia and some of these other like the more Sunni players in the region. And it's been a mad dash to control the Middle East between Iran and between a coalition of Sunni Muslim states, you know, typified by Saudi Arabia, for example. Iran has been fighting and winning this. A rock that we spent so much time in and blood and treasure has become an Iranian proxy. And that is because the Iranians know what they're doing. They play, they are very shrewd and they are widely feared in the region. That's another thing is that

if you talk to locals, and I have a little bit of experience here, if you talk to locals, like Arabs, because Persians and Arabs are not the same, but if you talk to Arabs about Iran, you know, there's a real fear in the Middle East about Iran and its ambitions or its ability to change the chessboard. I just don't think it would be complete folly for the United States to try to get into a power struggle with Iran. We have, you know, over the past 10, 15 years, We have been playing that game in that region. At first, you know, fighting these different Sunni Muslim states and then going against Iran later on. I mean, we've been getting our hands dirty in that region for a very long time,

trying to affect some kind of change. And nothing that we have done has benefited us as Americans. We have not won that battle. We have not changed the chess board in any way that really benefits the United States. And so altogether, I just don't. I just do not find that getting involved or trying to get into a power struggle with Iran will serve us at all. And I think that it's just, it's madness to want to go back into the Middle East and try to get the chessboard back to the position that we want it to be in. It's never going to go back.

And we have lost so many allies in that region that, you know, we'd be going back years later and it would look entirely different. And yeah, so essentially just to answer your question, I do not know what they're thinking. I cannot understand it. And I just think that Americans need to be very loud and talk to their representatives about not wanting to involve ourselves again in the Middle East because there is a desire in Washington. They don't pay a price for this. And there are a lot of people that cut their teeth in the Middle East back in the day that would love to have. more influence in the Beltway. You know, they'd love to have contracts in the Middle East again.

And that's kind of what it comes down to a lot of the time. And so I think we have to be very cautious about that and pay attention. All right. So I want to mention two things that happen and get your opinion on why you think they happen. So after the assassination of Soleimani in Iraq, Americans took credit for it. Iran launched upon a base in Iraq. Nothing was done. Even Trump came out and said,

they need to say face. Israel kills Iranian general. I don't remember how many were dead in that bombing in Syria. And then as a response, allegedly Iran sends all of these drones towards Israel that go right they go into the desert they don't they don't kill anyone what is this is this a is this the faction that doesn't that certainly doesn't want war with Iran you know realizes it's foolish is just allowing them to save face knowing that the average American still going to be upset because

Iran retaliated? Why do you think they, if they want, if they so want war, they want to destroy this country, why would they allow them to do, to be able to save face like this? Yeah, that's a good question too. One thing that I, you know, and I might, I might diverge from some people in the audience. I don't know. I read these things, I read these things in a historical sense and also from my experience. So these are, this is how I, this is how I, to come about these problems. Washington, I think a lot of Americans, especially those of us who are critics of our foreign policy establishment, I think that we fail to appreciate how much influence Washington still wields, even though we've had many failures and it looks to us sometimes as Americans, like Washington's always just losing constantly or doing stupid things, which isn't always untrue, but Washington does control much of the chessboard, at least can affect

influence movement on that chessboard. And a good example, this is like anything that's happening in the Middle East, the United States knows. Almost anything. And what I mean by that is like if a country is making a decision, let's say Egypt decides to do a troop movement or, you know, even things like that were going on with 10-7, the, you know, October 7th last year, some of the neighboring countries. Have you recently purchased a new vehicle from Frankine Volkswagen? If so, you may be at risk for an exciting condition known as New Car Joy. Symptoms may include spontaneous smiling, sudden increases in confidence and uncontrollable

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I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time we've met every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jam-pack with rugby.

Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard Pressing applies after 12 months, further terms apply. The United States knows because Washington, Washington's kind of, it's still the biggest kid on that block, and it still manages a lot of these relations between Arab states. So their governments are communicating with Washington all the time. Washington knows.

And I look at these, these kind of these big spectacles in a way, like in the Middle East. And I take all of these things with a grain of salt. I don't always know what to believe because I know, do we have Washington and what Washington is kind of showing the world. We have what maybe Israel is showing the world or what the Arab states are showing the world there is an aspect of saving face but at the same time there's also you know there's kind of a there's kind of a procedure in which you go about is when someone is attacked or when someone gives someone a bloody nose and what the what the what the what the allowed responses uh without it

escalating to something where it goes to full-scale war nuclear war like there's in a way even as reckless and irresponsible as our foreign policy staff has been there is there are gentlemen a type of gentleman agreement between states and how they do things so that is real and i don't discount that but i do struggle to make sense of some of the things that happen because i think i think sometimes we get ourselves into this game of chicken everybody wants washington to back them up in the middle east or you will have some players that want maybe russia and that's kind of the tension is these states will want to have Washington backing them up.

The problem right now, though, that I can tell from, is that we have factional struggles going on, like a factional struggle going on within Washington itself. So there is a faction within the foreign policy establishment that wants to see a very different policy towards Iran. And then there's more of an old school, very much supported by Republicans, that wants to see the United States,

States unequivocally resist any kind of approachment to Iran and to back Israel no matter what. And that factional struggle has been taking place, and I think it's manifested in the streets as well. I think you can see this because, and it's most pronounced on the left, what we call the left, but it's because that's the establishment. What we're seeing is we're seeing like a very different approach to foreign policy, a very different view of Israel than has been, you know, permitted in the past. And that has become kind of a cause de jour on the side of the activist left. And then you see more of the establishment,

the Biden, Hillary Clinton and Republican old school establishment that is actually very hostile to Iran still. And even though there might have been agreements during the war in Iraq, like unset agreements between, you know, deconflicting things between Iran, not friendly. And so I have always interpreted this, that this is a really precarious moment for the world and for the United States, because not only are we watching these states try to act against each other and see what they can get away with in Washington's shadow, but they're all noticing that Washington is very weak. It's very divided. And this factional struggle is taking place that I don't know if anybody has a good read on it. And like, I don't know if our partners have a good read on it.

don't know if our enemies have a good read on it. I don't have a good read on it. And I think it makes things incredibly precarious. And so I think we're going to see actions that are almost like playing chicken or testing the waters or at least going according to the old procedure that to us might look like we're on the edge of World War III. But we just don't know. I mean, we could be or this could be going through the motions on what's acceptable,

knowing that we're in a state of conflict. but we don't quite want it to go to a full-scale war or to nuclear war. So, you know, bad answer, but honestly, I just don't know how to make sense of it. It's really difficult. And I think that when you see people out there that are, they're interpreting this and they're very, like, they feel like they know exactly what's happening and they, you know, they have this really strong, like confidence in their assessment. I tend to kind of shy away from that.

I don't think anybody really knows, to be honest. Well, I guess we're talked about foreign. Let's talk about domestic. I had a comment made to me the other day, and I'll get your opinion on it because it stuck with me. I was talking about Iran, overseas adventuring, things like that. And someone said, hey, at least if they're over there fighting an enemy, they're not the regime. isn't here fighting their perceived enemy, which would mean, you know, people like us. What's, what's your take on that comment? Oh, I hate that. Yeah, I've heard that, you know, as a GWAT vet and coming from like, you know, growing up at a conservative area, I heard that so much ad nauseum, you know, during the Iraq War and so on.

And it's every time I hear that, it just makes me shudder. It's like nails on chalkboard. But yeah, that's, it's completely nonsensical. It's silly. I just, it's embarrassing that this is something that still works on people. Just a real cheap point of propaganda. I think that Americans need to take a look and we don't even have to go back that far. Just go back to like 2001 and start re,

you know, remembering where we've been, all the places that we've sent soldiers and troops and whatever. We've had a print, a footprint of some kind. Look at the kinds of rhetoric that we're, you know, we're being bandied about, the political changes that had been taking place, the promises that were made, you know, like with the Patriot Act. And then ask yourself, you know, am I safer today? Do I feel safer? Do I feel more American? You know, and that might seem like a silly thing to some people, but I think we need to hold on to that a little bit tighter. You know, what was it to be an American at 2001 and what is it to be an American in 2024? Do we feel, I mean, people use the word united, but do you feel more like America is more secure?

And I'm not just talking about like from, you know, foreign threats, but do you feel like America is a secure place? Does it feel stable to you? I think most people, I can't really, I don't know many who would say that things are better today than they were in 2001 in many respects and why is that it's it's funny because all of these all of these these big you know foreign foreign ventures and uh the legislation that accompanied it things to secure us and to make us uh safer um they all came with a cost which were never discussed and what we found is that that same global war on terror has started to like infect our culture it's here it's in here in the united states you know it would have been unthinkable at the beginning of the war on terror no matter how ridiculous you know the rhetoric was and how

people were very uh they were scared of foreign threats but like the amount of censorship um and the amount like what people are feel comfortable talking about and we had really we had a pretty robust debate um even though ultimately lost like we had a robust debate about the patriot act i remember lawmakers uh criticizing this and i remember civil libertarians making lots of arguments about you know like what this could mean for free speech but look at the definition of what free speech is then and what it is today um the global war on terror came home and that machine that was used to locate and identify terrorists to defeat our enemies with propaganda you know propaganda is a tool the identifying threats you know all these kinds of things have infected our

culture to such an extent like I hear the word terrorist used constantly no one talks about Islam is terrorists anymore though like that's just not even on the radar but we use terrorists all the time to describe Americans and like these terrorists are usually like you know like 16 year old kids in their you know at their computer like these are the words that we're using to describe one another i just think it goes to show that that all of these things that we were kind of sold ultimately did come back here in back to the homeland and we're now having that fight here um i think you can see for those who are interested in history i think you can see a parallel in Vietnam under discussed and understudied but there was a kind of a the dark arts of

Vietnam like there was a shadow war going on the CIA's involvement in Vietnam is fascinating it's something I think a lot of people should look into but there was kind of the beginning of an intelligence apparatus in a wartime theater that was tested out in Vietnam and proved fairly successful but those things you can do i mean it's documented you can find this uh that same approach that type of footprint came back into the united states and a lot of the things that we talk about about the excesses of the intelligence community for example were things that were tried out in vietnam and other conflict zones around the world i don't see that that is any different than the war on terror and how surveillance and not just surveillance by the government but citizens are

surveilling each other. These are changes that I think is hard to quantify, but everyone feels it. And I think if you take just a holistic approach of this and you try to just use some common sense in your gut, you'll see that we have been sold a real bill of goods and that the last 20 years have been devastating to our culture, to our prosperity. It's been terrible. And I think that Americans need to wake up to that. I think that's really important. The America First movement, the first one, was really like born on the backs of World War I veterans who felt the same way. They felt like World War I had been the Great War had been sold on false pretenses, that the backbone of America had to pay the ultimate price for that. There were a lot of lies. There was a lot of

profiteering and that they never wanted to see this happen again. And so they started the America First Committee to try to drive. the United States away from rearmament and mobilization and then supporting the Soviet Union. And there was a big propaganda war. And I can't help but see parallels between what happened then and what happened today. Because my last point would be is who are the biggest critics of the after effects of the global war on terror on American society? It's veterans. You know, we're at the forefront of this.

We talk about this all the time. We're the ones that either get silenced or marginalized the fastest because we've seen this. Most of us didn't want to see this come back home. We didn't want to see our families treated as if they were terrorists or treated like they're an possible insurgency. But this is the kind of blowback that comes from being at war constantly. And I just, I think that we need to take a deep breath and we need to be very cautious. as American citizens on what we buy and how we perceive, you know, the rest of the world

and whether like going to war is something that, you know, I can't even imagine what a war, like if we were engaged in a full-scale war now, like what that would look like in 20, 30 years because we're still trying to deal with the after effects of the global Ontario. Just imagine a larger conflict against, you know, the China or Russia or Iran. On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee. A visit filled with festivity. Experience a story of Ireland's most iconic beer in a stunning Christmas setting at the Guinness Storehouse. Enjoy seven floors of interactive exhibitions and finish your visit with breathtaking views of Dublin City from the home of Guinness.

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This winter Sports Extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time we've met every Champions Cup match exclusively live, bus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jampack with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months.

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My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at Guinness Storehouse.com. Get the facts. Be Drinkaware. Visit Drinkaware.com. talking about staying on the home front we just had a woman who was sentenced to two and a half years for praying at a planned parenthood an abortion clinic it seems like the like the FBI is you know I mean their regime they're 100% with the regime it seems like whatever whatever they tell whatever garland tells them to do they do and i mean how do we get past this i mean

okay say trump gets elected in november they're short of firing the whole fbi i which i'd love to see you know and installing your own guys in there um it just seems like things like that are going to continue or you know another and another question you could answer is if they're concentrating on you know 75 year old women 80 year old women who are at abortion clinics and putting them in jail for two years is that a sign of weakness on their part that they're not that they don't have bigger fish to fry yeah it's I think your instincts are spot on with this This is, this is, partially it's to keep, I think these, these, they look to me, they look like raids.

They just look like, like this is something that you would see, like in a war zone, is that you have, you have these agencies and local teams that are going in and either they're arresting old women or, or they are doing no-knock raids, you know, 6 a.m. and I'm sorry like as a guy I'm not I'm not gonna go around and say like I'm Rambo or anything but like I know a thing or two and you don't if you a lot of these people that end up getting gunned down by these state agents you know they know what's gonna happen you can you can affect I mean you there's not much that you have to do to know that you're gonna end up shooting somebody I don't think it's just chalked up to inexperience or to you know or or And heaven forbid, you know, people say that the person was like, you know, fighting back or something.

You know, they're shooting like old obese men in their homes. Or they're arresting grandmothers or fathers. These people have never darkened the door of like a strip club or anything. Like they're not, these are like just these are like just regular rank and file conservatives. They're decent people. You know, these are they're generous and so on. This is to me I interpret this as a this is a message It's similar to what we saw like with the purges in the military is that when you have

When you have something like a vaccine mandate it's really not about just Mandating some you know Some kind of you know it's like this medical intervention because it's gonna really help troops or something It's it's also you are sending a message Non-compliance will not be tolerated You will always if you find yourself on the other end of this thing you will always you will always be at risk of losing your job, being smeared, going to jail, or possibly being killed. And this is kind of how this is how these guys operate.

And they've operated like this for a while, but they've never taken on, I think, such a soft target that is, this is like half the country. So I do think it's sending a message. And I also think, though, that it is a sign of weakness. I think that this, I think that Washington has had to maintain, as we've seen, the propaganda machine is breaking down. And I don't attribute all of America's unity to propaganda during the Cold War. I think that I'm not saying that, but it was a huge cornerstone of American unity throughout the Cold War. And arguably, it had to be done to win the Cold War, let's say.

You know, I don't have a dog in that. I'm just, you know, saying what most people think. But we have been trying to run the country on a Cold War paradigm, on a Cold War setup for a long time. And that includes the propaganda machine. But that propaganda machine is breaking down. The Internet is just devastating it. And people are not, and people are starting to go, but we're regressing back to the mean, where you don't have this big unified America rallying around the same symbols and the same history and the same perspective.

and believing that we're all in the fight together, you're starting to see this fracturing. And it's breaking down on regional, sectional lines. It's breaking down on ethnic lines, religious lines, so on. And for Washington to maintain control, I think in the beginning, you could use propaganda, as we've all seen, like it isn't working. The pandemic was not a propaganda victory. I know a lot of people were compliant.

I know that was a big black pill to see, but it didn't go as smoothly as, I think some critics would have us believe. It was not a success. That was a big failure in many ways. And they haven't been able to maintain that. Their disinformation attempts have been laughable. And so what do you do when the propaganda machine breaks down?

What do you do when ideological conformity is so important to you maintaining power? Well, then you start going to the hard power. And I think we're starting to see the beginnings of that. I do not want to see that continue. I would love to see that to stop, in fact. I don't know if Trump can do that. And I don't know that if Washington changes hands between, you know, goes from blue to red, that it's going to fix everything.

I think it's a, I would, you know, between the two, obviously, I will pick Trump all day long. And I think the important thing about Trump isn't just that it's Trump. It's the people around Trump. It's the people Trump will bring in. It's the people that he will ask, like, who should I staff my agencies with? And it's who's recommending those. I've seen some good things.

So I have, you know, I've have some hope here. But at the end of the day, I'm just going to be honest with you is I have my focus entirely locally and regionally. Like, that's where I'm putting my, those eggs are in that basket. I just do not have much faith in Washington, whether it's in the hands of Republicans or Democrats. and I fear that if we don't start to rely on that local machinery a little bit more, that we're going to be that much more exposed to a lawless regime. You know, there's a lot, just to give you a little example, is like when we see these, they're basically like hit teams that go in and arrest somebody

for posting memes or go after somebody for praying at an abortion clinic. I mean, these are like, it's very possible that these people could end up getting shot or having their dogs get shot or being traumatized. I mean, these are, this is the kind of thing that we would do to go capture, you know, capture or kill terrorists or insurgents, bomb makers, things like that. This is being employed against American citizens who are clearly nonviolent at 6 a.m. All right. States could do a whole lot on making sure that this kind of nonsense does not happen in their sphere.

They can do a lot to make sure that they push back against. Washington. I don't know if Donald Trump will fix this. I hope he does. I'm like you. I would love to see a full gutting of our intelligence services. I love to see the FBI just completely ended. I'd love to see that. I don't know if that will happen. There's a lot of people in Washington who call themselves conservatives or America First who do not want to see that happen. But I do know that I have a lot more influence over my local community, my local sheriff, and even my governor and that it is a we have a lot more strength than we realize by saying no to the feds at a local and state level with what powers we do have than we do in hoping that our vote will

change a culture that has been there for decades yeah i like that you mentioned local i talk about that a lot too and seem to be getting that uh getting that going down here where i am to organized wells So, yeah, I wanted to bring something up to you, talking about culture. Because, you know, when I think local, I think culture. I mean, they go hand in hand. Is there a national culture? Well, it seems like there is multiple national. There's multiple cultures all over the country.

But local can be a culture. But let me just tell you this. Tell you a little bit, a little story. And I can get your opinion on this. So a friend of mine went to Iceland recently. I've been to Iceland. I remember being told the story when I was there that the police had shot one person in, like, the last 15 years. A guy lost his mind, had a shotgun.

Police showed up. They had to take him down. The police officer apologized to the family, went to the funeral, and then stepped down, you know, and stopped becoming. you know, gave up his position. In this country, why don't, why would we never see that? Why? I don't think people want to even address that question as to why in this country of 3,000 in the North Atlantic, why would a police officer, why would police only have to

shoot one person in the last 15 years? and then it traumatized them so much that they quit their job, apologize to the family, go to the funeral, and in this country, when somebody is shot in there by accident, wrong guy. I feared for my life. I get it. There's so much rugby on Sports Exeter from Sky,

they've asked me to read the whole lot at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports exes, is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time, we've met every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more.

Thus, the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jam-packed with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard-pressing applies after 12 months, further terms apply.

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Live entertainment, great memories and the gravity bar. My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at ginnestorehouse.com. Get the facts, be drinkaware, visit drinkaware.eweer. But why? Why does it seem like up there in Iceland, I just shot a member of my family. And here, it's like something that would happen in a war zone. And that's how you would justify it. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean,

it's interesting. That's how a lot of people view this. It's really, it's strange. It's like, we'll have national riots over a police officer kneeling on. you know, a guy's, a guy's shoulder's neck. I don't remember exactly what part, but, you know, I mean, we all know what happened with the George Floyd situation or with, you know, it's a cop, a police officer shooting an obvious criminal or something like that. And we'll have like national riots and there will be like this national bloodletting. But people will get shot in their homes by federal agents.

You know, we have we have people being compared to terrorists or insurgents. There's this like constant drumbeat that we have to be. be afraid of like some fifth column emerging from middle America. I mean, it's ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. It's illogical. But it, the people's reactions to it shows that, I mean, this is just showing the priorities and the character of this regime that we're living under.

And that, you know, we will have riots about local police. but federal agents are embraced by the same figures that are attacking like local sheriffs or local police officers who really like to my day-to-day experience do a whole lot to make my neighborhood a lot safer right and i also have a lot more influence over the character of the people that serve my community i have nothing i have no say in who's knocking at my door at six a m over a meet you know and i think this goes back to the point And I love like the work you've done on local because a culture really does matter. There's a broad culture that is kind of this deracinated mass culture that a lot of Americans have just kind of had to cling to because they've lost their particularisms. You know, they've lost their particularity. So they're the most susceptible, like a deracinated or uprooted American is the most susceptible to this mass culture. And what it really comes down to is it's a culture that comes from the expression of power. And so your culture is what is, it forms like scar tissue around wherever that hammer is, is landing.

So you can entertain all sorts of nonsensical contradictions while feeling like, you know, you're, you're logical and right and correct and good. Because at the end of the day, you're just responding to the stimulus. you'll lie around you and at the end of that is a gun right and I it's a real it's kind of a dark thought and this is why I'm you know I'm a not to cheap in it but it's just it's like this is why I'm a big fan of good vibes and this is why I'm a big fan of resurrecting in some ways a more authentic culture of who we are not just as Americans but locally who we are as people in a long chain of a family in kin and helping people to remember that this weird deracinated

fake anti-culture in some ways that's really just an expression of power and your response to it that there's a lot more to you there's there are things worth fighting for and defending and and you can actually affect culture in your in a in your own sphere of influence you know there an example of this would be is that i live in an area of where there were a lot of organizations and local government had been taken over by transplants who did not reflect the character and values of the locals in the community. It was a dog fight, you know, it was a little bit of a knife fight over two years of trying to change things. Something that happened is once, it really wasn't that difficult. I mean, it just took

coordination and activity and people showing up. But once you flip those seats, once you get into, on to a seat at the table, now you can affect real change. You can actually bring a culture in. And I made a post about this little while ago is that, you know, the true, there are true believers in every organization. When I say true believer, there are people that are ideologues that believe the ideology of, let's say, the institutional regime wholeheartedly. Or they have an alternative, subversive ideology that they want that institution to reflect. we spend a lot of time trying to change culture by by trying to change the mass how the mass views something you know we try to fight these ideals and values and there is a good conversation to

have there especially amongst thinking people so i'm not saying that that's not important but for the groundwork and for getting things done for affecting the culture of an institution of an organization what what the game plan should always be is you identify the problems, it's usually a small minority, you expel them from the organization or you marginalize them enough that they almost have to sit on their hands or remain isolated and you bring your people in and you affect the culture at that point. Your focus is on changing the culture of that organization. You do not have to convince 90% of the individuals in the organization. You don't even have to convince your town. It is getting in getting your your foot in the door. It is getting a seat at the

table. It's getting surrounded by a few of your friends, people that agree with you, people that share your vision, and making things happen, making decisions. I know that that sounds kind of simplistic, but it's, I've seen this happen too much to just discount it. Let's say that you have, let's just give an example. Let's say that you have like a downtown alliance in your town. A lot of towns are doing these like silly rainbow walks and skiddle flag things, you know, that they, to try to, what it is is they're celebrating the ideology of the regime in Washington. If you want to take your town back, your county back, what you do is you try to flip some of those seats with people that see this the same way you do. You don't have to even campaign on

something like displays of pride. But you can, if you can flip those seats, of people that have that share the culture that you cherish, that you value. Let's say that the thing you're protecting and promoting are like old-fashioned American values that stand in opposition to this newfangled pride, woke ideology. You flip those seats and you get in that downtown alliance and you control it or you have a majority on that board. Well, guess what? You can start inverting the same kinds of policies that have already been enacted. and from that act creates new culture because that most people are going to respond to who is

making decisions and they're going to either go along with it or they're going to oppose it. And you'll find that most people just go along with it. And I know that that sounds simplistic, but this is how like people that make culture, people that make changes are usually like a minority. It's not just a, it's not simply like we're swimming in a folkway alone. that there are local particularities, and they were always enacted or inaugurated by somebody who was a decisive, pivotal figure.

And that's what we should be aiming at, in my opinion. I can't change Washington. I can't fix the FBI. I do not know what's going to happen to the FBI, but I do know that I can flip seats in my local area. I do know that I could possibly get my guy as a sheriff who will see things totally different than the way that the regime seems things,

that they'll see me as a member of the community to be protected rather than somebody to be another target by the same forces that are, you know, looking, you know, from Washington. This is what I would like to see. And this alone, like action creates culture too. I think we do a lot of this. I'm not saying you're doing this, but I'm just saying like generally, like, you know, I'm online. I talk about my ideas. People might say, oh, you know, Lee is is helping to encourage culture or something. And that might be true.

You know, I want to encourage people to take, but really what I'm trying to encourage people to do is take hold of something to do something within their communities, within their homes. The action itself, that's where the culture starts to develop. That's where it comes from. It's practice. We don't just respect culture. You know, we don't just look at it and admire it. It is what we do. So the act that, like when we do and act deliberately, like we,

are we are carving a path we are creating culture by our actions so if if there's a sheriff who shares your vision who sees members of the community as real neighbors and people to serve and not as targets you know that that that comes with a culture that institution will develop a culture that will people will hold to and they will respect they will come to expect that and we have so much ground to make those changes at a local and regional level, you know, whereas Washington is, for the most of us, is out of our hands. So I apologize for rambling so much on that one, but that's where I see culture playing. That's where authentic culture really grows, and it's got to be through action, deliberately acting. There's so much rugby on sports extra from Sky,

they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-backed with rugby. For the first time, we've put every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup and much more. That's the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jampacked with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby.

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visit wonderlights.io. Well, let's finish on this. You may talk to people who are a little more in the main... Not mainstream, but there are still some guys on our side of the aisle who aren't going to come on my show, and I'm fine with that.

I have no problem with that. Is that what they're seeing? When you talk to people in the sphere, do they see as concentrate on local now? And do they even have an opinion on national politics having any chance of changing in the near future? I think that I think most people have a hope like I think most people are hoping that things will change on like a national scale and I think there's going to be those creatures of Washington for better or worse and they could be good guys or bad guy I don't know but they're their creatures of Washington like this is going to be their thing this is where they work this is their wheelhouse they know how to get things done they know how to play the Washington game and so they're going to have high hopes and they're going to have high hopes and they're going to have expectations and strategy and so on to enact their vision so I do think there's potential there and I think within like the commentariat and I think within like conservative like bread and butter conservative circles I think there's a lot of hope that the unpopularity of this

administration some of the catastrophic decisions that have been made and the loss of legitimacy in the eyes of the American people will present an opportunity but I also hear a lot from these types that we have to manage our expectations because as we know this the opposition maybe with the exception of some very energetic Trump type people they don't have they really just don't share the same agenda as like what regular Americans want to see you know maybe our best advocate is like a Trump or people close to him that are there primarily to advance advance an agenda that is is more in line with the American people actually want.

But I think that we have to manage our expectations. And I think that a lot of people feel that way, even now. That even if Trump wins, it's a lot better because it will feel like the boots kind of off our neck a little bit. But that, are we really going to see the border shut down? Are we really going to see mass deportation? We sure hope so. But we've kind of been through this about 1,000 times,

where we're pushed to a point of desperation, where we really feel like annihilation. is just right down the road and then nothing happens and then it just the temperature just keeps rising you know this is kind of a game of pressure and release we don't really see the problems get solved but we see the pressure alleviate a little bit and so we end up really trying to push for that but i see within like so i think within the conservative commentary i think that there's a desire for that but i also see a shift and this is kind of within this sphere you know like one of the reasons i will I love talking to people and I will go on almost any podcast is because dissent matters.

It's really important. And the only people who are really dissenting is this new class of, I mean, we call them dissidents, but they're people that are not coming from typically your media complex, your commentariat. They're not people that are getting featured in the Atlantic. But these are people that are motivated for their own interests or they are patriots. or they are patriotic or they feel like there's a grave injustice and they're getting into this scene and we're seeing a new media landscape where it's pushing people and i'm not just talking about influencers because i i think influencers are just kind of like an entertainment but we always will see

entertainers but like you know like you're out here on this podcast and you're you're breaking ground in ideas or concepts that people haven't even discussed for years or you're talking about problems in a way that no one in Washington is talking about. You don't hear this on Fox News. And this is dissent because we're dissenting from that large anti-culture that I talked about earlier of mass politics. We're talking about real things here and we're talking about people, like actual people. And there's an authenticity that I think that rank and file everyday Americans are craving and this class that I'm talking about are really the only people that can provide that can provide like to be like I am really like you like I'm a person like you um and so I think that

that's where there's a lot more influence that you're going to see from this this class this new class that actually talks doesn't talk down to their audience or cheap in it but presents very compelling ideas that somebody who could be like a bureaucrat in Washington or a lobbyist would find compelling just as much as a truck driver who's tuning into a podcast. And this is actually kind of why I think some of that localism is becoming more attractive. It's not just people are demoralized. I think that people are realizing like I can't trust other people to do the work for me. And so even if like we have insane people that are dictating our foreign policy right now and it could bring us into a war, like what's the next step? Well, if we do,

go to war i don't want my kids to be drafted so that's going to take a local effort that's going to take me talking to other people who feel like me who are not denizens of washington uh and we're going to be talking about like well what do we do about that you know these are like you're talking about it right now i mean these are the things that regular ordinary people are talking about this is what's interesting to them and so that might have a localism flavor but it will always relate to macro decisions as well and so at the end of the day i think my response would be that we're going to see this new media landscape continue to evolve and mature. And I think it's going to surprise everyone about what it's going to unleash, not just in terms of

ideas, but people actually doing things. And I think when people actually start doing that, start working locally, as long as they're not in New York City or places like that, they'll see that they can get things that they can achieve things that they didn't think were possible, that they could actually start having hope. But, you know, we're so trained to look at the national and judge the health of the nation by, you know, how Washington is, what Washington is doing. And, yeah, I mean, they do. They have their tentacles and everything.

But I think locally, you know, I mean, I, I live in a political area. People just don't talk about politics. Even at church, they don't talk about politics. So, you know, it's, you can break free of it. But it is going to be local for now. And then, you know, we can worry about other things later. I think that's where we're at.

Yeah, one thing I'd just say to that, because I love what you said about, you know i do think i take that very seriously i think that our biggest strength for those of us on this side of the fence it's going to be we have to outlast uh these crazy people we have to outlast them you know we have to out endure them and that we actually are built to do that uh with what we believe and how we live our lives and that's actually strength it's painful because we have to we have to go through the fires first, but we can outlast, we can outlast this. But part of that means we cannot allow ourselves to become too demoralized. It's very easy to, and I know how it is because I've been there. It's easy to look, like you said, you know, Washington's projecting a picture of, you know,

our media is projecting a picture of what the world looks like. It wants us to feel small. because when we feel small and desperate, we're willing to go and turn to almost anyone to alleviate that. We aren't willing to, you know, when we feel like that, we don't feel capable of taking things into our own hands. And I had somebody who I talked to at a recent meetup for another organization. It told me about how their school board had been taken over by transplants.

And then they had outsourced all hiring decisions to a nonprofit, which was not even in from the state. and they obviously were hiring like woke people and then they were starting these LGBT affinity groups and all this like all these all this decision making is supposed to be in the hands of the school board as being outsourced to a nonprofit that's funded by you know liberal billionaires or whatever um but it took them a couple years but they they flipped the script they took back the school board they got just enough people and they made it so uncomfortable that another you know some of the folks that had been there enacting this resigned Well, now they control this turf. And what they did is instead of just saying, we're going to cut ties with this nonprofit and just fend for ourselves, you know, they went to their local towns and counties and asked for them to match funds to make up for the loss funding

if they cut ties with this nonprofit that was, you know, really embroiling the community. And guess what? They did. And so it wasn't even like they had to really suffer any penalty for it. They were able to become more free. They also had the funding now to do. do and all they did was invert all of those things and take it in a completely different direction.

And I can't tell you how much it has changed the culture of that community. I had heard over and over about how people felt empowered. They felt happy, happier about the schools that their kids were going to. They wanted to get more involved in politics. And so like, you know, it's a small thing, right? But like, let's juxtapose that to worrying about whether Trump is going to get rid of the Department of Education. I would love him to do that, but let's say he doesn't do that. Well, I can't use that as ammunition to become so demoralized that I don't see that there's a fight playing out right under my nose.

And it could do wonders for my community and for me and my children if I were just to get out there and show up. If I was just to do something about it. And you'll find, and this is what I always say to people like people that are in our sphere. I see so many capable young people. I see all these young guys that have great ideas. And, you know, more importantly, they want to be somebody. They want to go out and they want every young man wants this. We all want to go out and make our mark on the world.

We all want to make, you know, we all want to be somebody that can affect our vision for the better, right? I just see so many of these local places, even like within, you don't even have to do local government. Even if you were to start a club or a group of people that are kind of oriented around similar ideas, or similar backgrounds or things like that. And you don't even have to incorporate it. I mean, these are completely open to all of us. And I see so many of these young guys that want to get their hands dirty. They want to cut their teeth.

They want to figure out, you know, they want to move their way in the world. And I'm just like, hey, like turn off CNN. Let's forget about Washington for a little bit. That's always going to be there. It's never going to stop. What's going on with you here? What can you do here? What if like you and five people that see things like you ran for that school board seat?

You know, let's say you have one guy who's really good in front of the camera and you throw him on the school board. And the rest of you are feeding him good ideas and you're supporting him and you're building up his profile and you're helping him to get the word out. I mean, man, you have your guy now in a position of a power and authority. Like now you're playing the game. And I would just love to see young guys do this because so many guys get demoralized. And like, I think it's very prevalent among young men because when you feel like you're trapped, when you feel like you have no options, you start to get, it gets dark. And I just, you know, this is what makes us, I don't mean just to speak to the fellows out there,

but this is what makes us men. It's by doing things. It's by taking risks. It's by making our mark on the world. It's by having good friends and by fighting, right? You can do all of that at a local place. So I appreciate that, Pete. I didn't mean to ramble too long, but I just, I love your perspective on that.

No, it's all good. Thank you very much. All right. Let's end it right there. Promote what you're going to promote. Absolutely. So I'm Lafayette Lee. You can find me on Twitter at at Partisan underscore O.

You can also find me on my substack at Lafayettelea.com or ruins. Substack.com. And then I'm also contributing editor to I am 1776. And if you're interested in the futurism issue that's coming out here in a couple weeks. Go on and check it out and get yourself a copy. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And when you come back, let's make sure it's not as long as it was as long as stretch as this one was. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, thanks, Pete. I appreciate it. Thank you.