The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Hops

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey y'all, welcome this week's show. Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite better herbs, and it is hops. Yes, the same hops you use in beer. I really got into hops in college, like most of us, but I joined a brew club. Home brewing was very popular at that point in time. There was a little brew club called the Brew 52s, and there was a brew shop where you could go in and get everything you need it and I mean you know you get a five-gallon carboy some malt powdered malt or extract and some hops and yeast and I mean gosh this was around 2,000 or so and

Starting point is 00:00:49 you know prices have gone up since then everything has but I mean I grew five gallons of beer for around ten bucks and I was making really good beer too good brown ales and IPAs and English bidders and stouts and porters and yeah I got really into it for a while and it was it was fun it was a lot of fun and you know the club was the brew 52s named after the B 52s a you know classic Athens band and it was just a it was a fun time to get into such a sap but really the addition of hops to beer was um date to around 1,100 AD. St. Hildegard von Bingen was a great herbalist who learned herbal medicine from visions of information from angels and such. She called the, and what she called the voice of

Starting point is 00:01:45 the living light. So this is someone who, like, was literally taught herbal medicine from God. Really impressive. Her books are incredible, and I've written quite a bit about her. Before then, beer was bittered and you bitter beer for two reasons one to counter the sweetness of the beer but the other is really for preservation if you don't put hops or another bittering herb in there the beer will turn bad within just a few days so before then they used a lot of different herbs the beer of the middle ages was basically called grout that was the most popular anyway and this is the really more the English name for it. And it was bittered with many different things. Members of the Heath family, the Myrtle family, several of the herbs they used were actually hallucinogenic.

Starting point is 00:02:42 And a lot of our, I mean, it's Halloween, right, so a lot of our kind of mythology about witches and ghosts and spooks and all that came from the fact that women were the beer brewers back in the Middle Ages, and a broommistress wore a tall, pointy black hat, and when she had finished making her beer, she would hang a broom over the door, and she'd make it a big black cauldron, and of course, that kind of sounds like a, you know, a cartoon version of a witch, and that's exactly what it was. And because the beer was hallucinogenic, you'd probably see a bunch of ghosts or think somebody had put a spell on you. And they, they, it was actually encouraged to put those stimulating hallucinogenic herbs in the beer by the warlords and such at the time because

Starting point is 00:03:29 it was said to stir up battle fervor. So you imagine a bunch of Europeans drinking too much beer today at a soccer game and rioting. Well just imagine a bunch of them, you know, barbarians and Vikings and such downing a bunch of grout and suddenly they're totally insane and just you know seeing things and um and violent and that's really what the problem was well as um the catholic church civilized europe and the church moved into every area they really had an issue with this hallucinogenic beer because it would it caused a lot of deaths and insanity and such as that a lot of the you know real atrocities of that time were people pretty whacked out of their minds just going around burning villages and raping and looting and pillaging.

Starting point is 00:04:24 And so the church decided we need an alternative that will bitter the beer because everybody drank alcohol back then. The water was not good. It was, you know, you'd get contaminated water would kill you faster than just about anything. So the whole world lived on beer and wine. Mead to some extent. Very common for people in that time to drink maybe, you know, upwards of three gallons of beer a day, especially, you know, hardworking farmers and such that were sweating a lot. And it was

Starting point is 00:04:54 not, as, you know, some people would say a low alcohol or a no alcohol beer or wine. It was very highly alcoholic, in fact, and some of it was also hallucinogenic. So the church said, we need something that will preserve the beer, that will make it healthier, and that will not have this effect. So St. Hildegard came up with this idea of using hops. Hops is an excellent bittering agent it is a preservative for beer and it's a sedative so the beer that those soccer hooligans are drinking now is actually calming them down just imagine what would happen if you spike their beer with oh i don't know just you know drugs let's just say you spike their beer with stimulating hallucinogenic drugs like what was that stuff a PCP i mean this one is just coming to mind you

Starting point is 00:05:47 know the old horse tranquilizers that were apparently very popular in the 70s and they just go insane right so anyway that was a revolution and within a century or so laws were passed throughout the civilized parts of Europe saying that beer could only be bittered with hops and that did away with all that tradition but some of these brew mistresses continued their tradition of making that hallucinogenic beer and that's really where we get a lot of our mythology of witchcraft from. People in their minds say they're thinking of a brew mistress and they're thinking of a potion that they drink that they're going to think they're flying or something's chasing them

Starting point is 00:06:28 or faces are coming out of the wall. They're going to think they're under a spell. And so it went on like that for a few hundred years. And by the 1500s, that really ended in a lot of lot of, you know, witch trials and burnings, especially in the Protestant countries and Germany and England and such as that. And that, unfortunately, most of those, there were some witches, I'm sure, among them, you know, they're going to be witches in every generation. A lot of those were really innocent women who were, you know, tortured to death. And the reason was not

Starting point is 00:07:11 because anyone really thought they were practicing witchcraft, you know, maybe the ignorant people did, but this was the beginnings of the brewing industry, and the great brewhouses of Europe had to put the countryside brewers out of business. And so, with a largely illiterate populace, that was very superstitious, and that was especially true in the Protestant nations because the Catholic nations had much better schooling in education, they convinced people to kill most of the women who made beer. And many herbalists were swept up in that as well. And that was a real, almost an epidemic in England and Germany, a few other places.

Starting point is 00:07:58 Basically, not so much in Catholic countries because they had their own courts and, you know, had been dealing with superstitions and various issues for, you know, a few thousand years, 1,500 years by that point, not a few thousand, but 1,500, and thanks to St. Hildegard, they knew very well how beer was supposed to be made, and it was supposed to be bittered with hops. And so, interesting history really dispels a lot of, you know, it's Halloween. It's kind of neat to kind of find the truth behind these stories. And, you know, that continue to be true in early America and the early American colonies, especially, you know, among the Puritans and such.

Starting point is 00:08:45 They had no, I mean, Puritans, Puritan New England had laws mandating a tavern in every town because, one, again, the water was not clean. People had to live on beer and wine and a lot of rum, really, in the colonies. But two, that was where someone could go to get warm. that was somewhere where someone could go to have a meal. You know, someone was traveling or they were poor. The tavern was the only thing that kept them alive. And the Puritan ministers often had as part of their paycheck so many gallons of rum and so many gallons of beer.

Starting point is 00:09:22 In fact, the entire reason the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock was they ran out of beer. So they got to brewing pretty quickly. But that bias against the brewings. mistresses continued, and there was, of course, a lot of the witch trials of the Massachusetts and beyond and such as that. So it's all very interesting. It's all very intertwined, really, and most of what you're going to read on either side of the political or cultural aisle is completely false. I mean, those on the left, the modern pagans and, you know, secularists are going to say, all those evil Christians, you know, they were just persecuting women. They don't

Starting point is 00:10:02 know anything about grout and hallucinogenic beer and all that and those on the right are going to say you know a lot of people pretend like the wine in the bible wasn't really wine even though that's physically impossible as yeast on the skins of the grapes turns the sugar into wine the minute they're pressed it literally if you don't paste it or put a camden tablet or something into your grape juice within 24 hours you've got wine and the bible talks about people getting drunk on wine which is not a good thing, but Jesus made and drank wine, and believe it or not, Christians have made and drank alcohol for the entire history of Christianity. And, you know, if you believe that Jesus is God, he can't sin. And therefore, if you think drinking wine is a sin, the God who

Starting point is 00:10:47 made wine can't really be God. So if you really believe that drinking wine or beer or alcohol or whatever is sinful. You're calling Jesus a sinner, which means you're not a Christian. You've actually just divorced yourself from Christianity because God cannot sin by definition. No, that was not great juice in the Bible. But anyway, people, you know, there's ignorance on both sides. And as an herbalist, I get a lot of insight into where a lot of these myths come from, which I enjoy quite a bit. but St. Hildegard described Hops as warming and drying and of a moderate moisture, but not useful in benefiting man because it makes melancholy grow in man and makes the soul of man sad and weighs down his inner organs.

Starting point is 00:11:40 Now, why would she say this? Now, remember this is written around 1100s. The language is a little hard for us to understand. hopps is actually sedative and estrogenic you know when you say a guy's got a beer belly it's really not from the beer itself it's not from the carbohydrates and calories in the beer it's because it's estrogenic he's actually putting on weight because he's increasing his estrogen levels probably come to a big surprise to a lot of frat guys but they're actually increasing their estrogen levels but as a sedative and

Starting point is 00:12:15 And because it can make people a little more emotional than usual and sleepy, yeah, hops can make you a little melancholy. But it's a strong sedative. Workers in hops fields have to wear face masks because the pollen from the hops bud will actually make them fall asleep in the fields. That used to happen a lot before modern filtration and such. So she said, as a result of its bitterness, it keeps some putrefereph – putrefactions from drinks, in other words, a preservative, to which it may be added so that they may last much longer. And that's the introduction of hops into beer brewing. Yeah. Before then, like I said, people were using Mirica Gale, Bogmurtle, Yarrow, Wild Rosemary,

Starting point is 00:13:05 which is not a true rosemary. That's a litem-polstra or Labrador tea. Anyway, all these herbs were not only used to preserve the beer and bitter it, but to make it more intoxicating. That people wanted to have one beer and be smashed, and that's what the herbs were used for. The medicinal properties of hops were known long before, the preservative properties. Diaschorides wrote of it in the Greek tradition.

Starting point is 00:13:40 He describes it, he says, it's astringent, used in decoctions for all those disorders requiring bathing around the vulva. It is mixed with ointments made for suppositories and with other ointments for the astringent quality therein, and is used in the preparation of perfumes and put into medicine, one of which was said to remove fatigue. Now, by the 1500s, the British, of course, were growing their own hops, and they were hops fanatics. Gerard said that the flowers of the hops are hot and dry. and stuff the head and hurt the same with their strong smell. I have no idea what he's talking about.

Starting point is 00:14:19 And remember this is Elizabeth in English, so bear with me for a minute. He says the buds or fir sprouts which come in the spring are used to be eaten in salads. It's true. Hops sprouts and buds are very, very good edible. You can actually grow them as a food. He goes on and says they're basically good for digestion, good for the entrails, as he puts it. You know, somewhat of a, they got some fiber to them. And the English were not exactly known to be eaten a lot of salads.

Starting point is 00:14:50 Good for also procuring urine, so a diuretic property. And in keeping the body soluble or soft, I'm not really sure what he means there. Probably inflammations of the abdomen, I guess. He says, the leaves and flowers and tender stalks remove the stoppings of the liver and spleen, purging by the urine. They help the spleen, cleanse the blood, and are profitable or be profitable against lingering agues, that's fevers, and also use for scabs and such like filth of the skin if they be boiled in way. The juice is of more force. Not only do they remove the obstructions of the entrails, but it is also thought to avoid collar and flim by the stool. Mucacy stools, which are pretty nasty.

Starting point is 00:15:38 It is written that the same dropped into the ears, take away the stench and corruption there. of. So good for ear infections. The flowers are used to season beer, ill with, and too many do cause bitterness thereof and are ill for the head. Yeah, I guess he wasn't into IPA. I mean, I've made an English bitter that one time uses so many hops you wouldn't believe it. And it was bitter, but it was delicious. The flowers make bread light. Yes, you can use hops bud in bread. It actually makes a very nice bread mixed with, you know, regular flour. the way you normally would or other grains. The coction of hops, or tea essentially, openeth the stoppings of the liver, the spleen, and kidneys, and purges the blood from all corrupt humors, using the same to come forth with the urine. The juice of hops openeth the belly,

Starting point is 00:16:29 and drive forth the yellow and choleric humors, and purges the blood from all filthiness. The manifold virtues of hops do manifestly argue to the wholesomeness of beer above ale. At this point, ale was not. hopped and beer was. For the hops rather make it a physical drink to keep the body in health than the ordinary drink for the quenching of our thirst. And it's, well, it's an English tradition. Hopefully it is coming back that in pubs they would make their own ale fresh every week. And so

Starting point is 00:17:04 it didn't have to be hopped. And the all was, well, usually more calorically dense, a little sweeter, a little breadier, and that was sort of the drink of the common man. That's before, you know, the logger craze. Loggers are always hopped as far as I know. And many ales are hopped today as well. Coal pepper writing about 100 years later gives a long description and tells you how to grow them and really gets into that. He said,

Starting point is 00:17:39 they open obstructures or the little. liver and spleen, cleanse the blood, loosen the belly, cleanse the rains from gravel, that's kidney stones. And they do have a good diuretic effect. And provoke urine. The decoction of the tops of hops, as the tame as well as the wild, works the same effect. Do be a little careful with wild hops. Some are very thorny, and they can actually really irritate the skin. It's almost like getting nettled. Anyway, in cleansing, the blood, they help cure the French diseases. No, by that, this is England's 1600s. They essentially meant venereal diseases, so STDs, as we might call them now, which would be syphilis and gonorrhea.

Starting point is 00:18:24 And all matters of scabs and itch and other breakings out of the body and also tetars, ringworms, spreading sores, the morphew and all discolourings of the skin. Those are basically all skin diseases and lesions. morphew, these are old words, tettors, you know, but yeah, skin issues. The decoction of the flowers and hops do help expel poison that any one hath drank.

Starting point is 00:18:49 The seed, take it and drink kills worms in the body and brings down women's courses or encourages minces. It expels urine. A syrup made from the juice and sugar pures the yellow jaundice, the headache that comes from the heat,

Starting point is 00:19:04 and the tempers of the heat of the liver, and stomach and is profitably given in long and hot agues that's fevers again that rise in cholerine blood both the wild and manured or cultivated or of one property and alike effectual in all foresaid diseases by all these testimonies beer appears to be better than ale the english love of beer again and they literally just meant hopped as opposed to unhopped they didn't have logger at the time this was all english beer served at room temperature and flat so you can understand why you know a little bitterness to the beer especially you know how sweet and and tasteless flat beer is but that's that was

Starting point is 00:19:49 the way the english liked it so 1930s um miss uh grieve starts talking about all kinds of different form types of hops. She mentions that the name ale was originally the Vikings drink and was brewed either from malt alone or malt mixed with honey and ground heath tops. We've already discussed the heath. Heath is, well, it's the same family as blueberry. It's also the same family as rhododendin and azalea. And some of it can be quite poisonous. Some honey taken from certain members of that ericaceae family can even make you hallucinate just like that beer and somehow it can poison you to death so i mean this stuff could be really strong but she says that the word beer came from the german and dutch origin and was given only to that

Starting point is 00:20:46 made with the newly introduced bitter cackens of hops so again st hildergarten van bingen that comes for the german tradition and you know The British had ale long before, but they didn't have beer. She says that hops were actually forbidden in the reign of Henry the Six, oddly enough. Yeah. The Parliament actually petitioned against hops as a wicked weed that would spoil the taste of the drink and endanger the people. However, in the fifth year of Edward the Six, privileges were granted to hop growers. and by 1608 they had laws passed not to allow anyone to import hops because they thought it was such an important industry for England so they had protectionist policies she quotes a lot of old authors John Evelyn in 1670 said hops transmuted our wholesome ale into beer which doubtless much alters its constitution this one ingredient by some says

Starting point is 00:21:55 suspected not unworthly, preserves the drink indeed, but replace the pleasure in tormenting diseases and shorter life. So even in the 1600s, they weren't completely sold on using hops. Now you'd be hard-pressed to get any kind of beer or ale in America that isn't hopped. We just, you know, by the 19-90s, Americans had so embraced German loggers that the ale industry, was essentially put out of business. Just about every beer you can get is essentially a type of logger. And then by prohibition, 1920s, people stopped brewing beer at home, unless if they did, they had to do it very secretly. And so it was actually illegal to grow hops in America until very recently. It was the home brewing movement of the 1990s that got hops legalized. I mean, hops were

Starting point is 00:22:53 just about as illegal as growing pot. I mean, and they're in the same family, actually. They're both in the cannabis family. But yeah, the only hops grown in America were through special government permits to the large brewing companies like Anheiser Bush and, you know, Coors and all that. They had their own farms with fairly high security and hops were illegal, which is insane. But yeah, now you can grow hops in your own yard. They're legal. And you really should because they have many uses beyond beer. You don't have to, like I said, they're a good edible plant. They grow like crazy and, you know, good medicinal uses. Ms. Greaves said hops have tonic, nervine, diuretic, and anodyne properties. Their volatile oil produces sedative and

Starting point is 00:23:40 supporific effects. That means it makes you sleepy. And the lupamoric acid or bitter principle is stomatic and tonic. For this reason, hops improve the appetite and promote sleep. Okay, lupamaric acid. That actually comes to the Latin name. Hops are actually had the same Latin root word as wolf, by the way. You know, like lupine. Yeah, interestingly, I don't, I never have figured out why that is. She liked it as a tincture and used it in bitters and tonics, systematic to improve appetite and digestion, a sedative, good for nervousness and hysteria to induce sleep. All good. Yeah, we still use it that way today.

Starting point is 00:24:26 She mentions that a pillow of hops would not only help with sleep, just a small pillow by your head, but warmed and, you know, dampened and warmed would help with toothache and nervous irritation. She liked the leaves and tops eaten or taken by the wine, a decoction made and taken a wine glass or two dose was good for the liver. hops juice cleanse the blood and for calculus trouble nothing better it can be fine that the bitter principle of hops that means urinary kidney and bladder stones that kind of thing external remedy hops combined with chamomile good for swellings of painful nature inflammation neuralgia rheumatic paints that's very true that has been proven in recent years you know I mentioned that hops is in the same family as cannabis and you know CBD oils very popular now for pain. It essentially blocks the pain sensors when you rub it on or, you know,

Starting point is 00:25:28 however you apply it topically. We're not talking about, you know, THC. We're talking the, the cannabis oil that is good for pain used topically and it's not intoxicating at all. Well, it's not legal in all 50 states. What is legal is hops, its cousin, and hops is actually more effective used topically for pain than CBD oil. So, Yeah, and that's been, you make a tincture of it, however you want to use it, apply it topically, and there's a lot of research that's going into that recently to prove it. Modern use, Plants for a Future says, Hobbs have a long and proven history of herbal use,

Starting point is 00:26:07 where they are employed mainly for their soothing, sedative, tonic, and calming effect on the body and mind. Their strongly bitter flavor largely accounts for their ability to strengthen and stimulate the digestion, increasing gastric and other secretions. The female fruiting body, that would be the flower, is anitine, antiseptic, antispeasmodic, diuretic, febriphuge, hypnotic, neurotic, sedative, stomatic, and tonic. I'm sorry, widely used as a folk remedy to treat a wide range of complaints, including boils, bruises, calculus, or, again, urinary stones. Cancer, cramps, cough, cystitis. I'm not sure what kind of cancer they're talking about there, so, you know, I never recommend anything for cancer, but they list it.

Starting point is 00:26:48 Cramps cause cystitis, debility, delirium, diarrhea, dyspepsia, fever, fits, hysteria, inflammation, insomnia, jaundice, nerves, neuralgia, rheumatism, and worms. That's a lot. I mean, one plant can do all that. You really should look into growing this one. The hairs on the fruit contain lupin, a sedative and hypnotic drug. When given a nursing mother's, lupin increases the flow of milk. Recent research has shown that it relates.

Starting point is 00:27:18 It contains a related hormone that could account for this effect, that's the estrogenic effect. Decoction from this flower is said to remedy swelling and hardness of the uterus. Hops flowers are much used as an infusion and can also be used to stuffed pillows where the weight of the head will release volatile oils. The fruit is also applied externally to, as a poultice for ulcers, boils, painful swellings, etc. It is said to be a remedy for painful tumors. The flowering heads, okay, yeah. They go on and talk about, yeah, use the flowers, make a tear or a tincture, or whatever you like.

Starting point is 00:27:54 Now, they did mention that skin contact with the plant causes dermatitis in some people. Definitely true. They said about one in 3,000 workers in the hops fields would have a dermatitis reaction to it. I think the wild ones are, well, quite a bit stronger, actually. I always like the Willamette and Cascade hops in my beer. And, yeah, I made some great beer. I need to get back to that at some point. Life's been a little up in the air since the hurricane.

Starting point is 00:28:27 I can't be dragging around big five-gallon glass carboys with me all over the place. But, you know, it's just a great hobby, and you can tailor it to your own tastes. And you can include different herbs in the beer. and you can have medicinal beers. There's a whole book written about that by Stephen Herod Buhner. If that interests you, it's called Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers. It fills short on the sacred part, but the healing part, it's got a lot of interesting folk traditions.

Starting point is 00:29:00 Mythology was really, I think, more of what he was talking there. But the herbal information is actually one of the best herb books on my shelf. A lot of ingredients that aren't discussed in many other herbals, unless you dig back through the old books like I like to do so y'all have a great week you know maybe you want to tell people that witches are actually just brew mistresses and they're not actually wicked

Starting point is 00:29:27 well that's not actually true but the popular you know cartoon version of a witch isn't actually a witch at all it's actually someone who made beer in the middle ages but you know hey I come from the mountains of North Carolina

Starting point is 00:29:46 between Asheville and Boone we probably got more actual witches and Wiccans than anywhere else in the country and they walk among us all the time and mostly you never know what they're up to and they don't bother anybody and I don't bother them and they certainly don't wear pointy black hats or carry brooms except on Halloween and I just look at it as no different than if I was living in a community

Starting point is 00:30:09 with, you know, Muslims or Hindus. We just have a different community, a different religion, I mean. We share the same community and we share the Appalachian tradition of basically mining one's own business and keeping yourself. If there's one tradition that is true for the Appalachian Mountains, probably because we've always been an outlaw moonshining culture, it's mine your own business and keep to yourself. You know, help a neighbor when in need, don't ask a lot of questions. That's about a bad. it really people tend to get along pretty well up here so long as they don't trespass one other people's property and then somebody gets shot and that happens you know probably more

Starting point is 00:30:51 frequently than just about anything other than domestic disturbances and you know such as that I always say people make their own trouble you can find the most rural peaceful pristine area put a few people in there they're going to find a way to fight and cheat on each other and steal and that's just the way it is but in the mountains in the Appalachians for a few hundred years there's always been a consequence to bad behavior if you go trespassing or stealing from somebody or cheating on your spouse or you're probably going to get shot and that could like it or not that's a whole lot more normative to keep people

Starting point is 00:31:36 in line then all the laws on the books if there's an actual consequence for bad behavior people tend to stay in line you know it was a few decades ago I mean remember the old folks talking about the last hanging they'd had on the mountain yeah I'm gonna talk about it guy was abusive his wife left him he got drunk I guess and went and shot through the window thinking he was gonna scare her I guess, and killed her and their child. Word got out in the community within a few hours. They came to drag him out and hang him.

Starting point is 00:32:18 He walked out to the front door, put his hands behind his back. He knew they were coming for him, and they hanged him, and they didn't have a lot of trouble around there for a while after that. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, actually. But, you know, same thing. happens in modern times, what's going to happen? A few years of trials, attorneys are going to make a fortune, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, or if it's a public defender, the taxpayer is going to have to pick up the tab. Even if the guy gets the death penalty,

Starting point is 00:32:56 he's going to be sitting on death robe until he dies of old age, being paid for, supported, giving, you know, three meals a day in medical care and recreation by the tax. taxpayer, there's not actually that much incentive or disincentive, I guess I should say, for people to commit crimes these days, especially with, you know, the Soros DAs and all that, the liberal DAs that keep just letting people out over and over and over. Obviously, mob justice, or however you want to put it, lynchings and hangings and all that, were not always conducted fairly and I'm sure a lot of innocent people were killed but even just the the threat even just the threat pretty much kept people in line yeah that's probably a very

Starting point is 00:33:50 controversial statement it's probably not a good you know charitable Christian attitude but yeah and I'm not talking about the clan I mean the clan um actually killed you know, the myth is that the Klan was going around lynching all these black people all the time. The Klan actually killed more white people than all the blacks and Jews and Indians and Mexicans and such put together. And it was usually, the Klan was out to kill Catholics. If you actually look at the history of it, the Klan killed more Catholics and all the ethnic minorities put together. And they weren't, it wasn't for any reason. They weren't up no good.

Starting point is 00:34:30 It was just because they were Catholic. So I'm not in any way, shape, or form endorsing any kind of, you know, violence or organization like that. But when the people of the community were self-policing and self-regulating, not as, you know, a member of an organization like the clan or something, but just as, you know, normal people that basically would get together a posse, you know, like they used to do in the old Western movies, it kept people pretty mow in line. it really did and like I said I mean you know first thing it comes to mind is what that old was it hang him high or um no it was one of the old Clint Eastwood westerns where he was um innocent man grabbed by the posse they strung him up and he survived the hanging um all those movies he did back then were fantastic especially the outlaw of josie wales one of the greatest movies of all time perhaps the greatest movie of all time

Starting point is 00:35:32 um you know so yeah innocent people uh did um sometimes get swept up and uh falsely accused and that's awful and you know there's a reason we have the courts but i mean criminals get away with a lot more now than they used to let's just put it that way um a lot more there just isn't a lot of deterrence anymore. I mean, even back when cops were just allowed to beat the crap out of somebody, you know, at least you had an incentive to not commit a crime. And I'm not the biggest, you know, really, I think a lot of the laws in our books are stupid. I've had some issues with bad cops before. I'm not, I mean, I'm a, you know, I'm a back of the blue kind of guy, but I'm not an all cops or saints kind of guy. They're good ones and they're bad

Starting point is 00:36:31 ones and even worse sometimes when it comes to game wardens and such. But I'm just saying people used to have a much more of incentive not to be predatory in their communities or lazy. People used to have to work for a living, too. You didn't just go get a government check. But what are you going to do? There's got to be a balance. And it's like the pendulum, the pendulum can swing too far one way, and then it swings too far the other way.

Starting point is 00:37:11 You know, you've got to look for that middle where justice is fair. People are treated equally under the law, and it's swift and decisive, and there's a real disincentive for breaking the law. there's also a real disincentive for you know a cop to abuse his powers or a judge to you know wrongly can lead to someone's wrongful conviction or a politician to take a bribe and sometimes absent that the collective I guess morality of the community is far more effective in enforcing its its own law you know that's just it's been the truth throughout history i mean yeah if you've got more money and more political influence you can get away with a lot more um that kind of you know is going to be true on either side but these days it just seems to be the worst of everything i mean i mean do you honestly believe

Starting point is 00:38:16 if you're you know you're going to be seated for a jury that the uh attorney the defense and the prosecutor attorney are going to tell you the absolute truth? No, you know they're going to lie. One of them is going to be lying his full head off. I mean, attorneys are supposed to take a vow, I guess, an oath not to lie, but we all know that lawyers lie. I mean, I had a district attorney, he had been a defense attorney, bragging to me one time about all the guilty murderers. He had gotten off and fully admitting to lying. And he said, it's not, my job is just to get my client out of this.

Starting point is 00:39:02 It's up to the other one to prove him guilty. And he was just boasting about how he lied to the jury, how he lied to the judge. He lied to everybody. He was so successful that they had made him a district attorney. And then he was lying to try to convict people. And what is a judge but a very successful attorney? So basically the best liar becomes the most. successful lawyer and the most successful lawyer becomes a judge. So you're going in there

Starting point is 00:39:31 a jury and you're supposed to decide someone's guilt or innocence knowing that you can't trust anything being told to you by anyone. That's actually an official of the court, an officer of the court. When they go in the witness stand, a witness is supposed to swear to tell the truth. The lawyer is just going to lie his head off. Our system is broken. But anyway, that's my opinion. I don't see how in good conscience I could ever be seated on a jury, especially, I mean, any kind of serious charge, I'd have to say, look, I believe you're lying to me.

Starting point is 00:40:08 I believe every word that comes out of your mouth. I fully and honestly believe that you are lying to me and the other attorney would be lying to me. And I don't have much trust for the judge. And I'm not psychic. I mean, in case that it comes down to, I have to know who's telling the truth, knowing that you're going to be lying to me. How can I do this? In good conscience, if there's not convincing serious physical evidence, I don't see how I could ever sit on a murder trial or something like that.

Starting point is 00:40:44 So anyway, I don't know why I got on this subject. Mind your own business and go on to get along. Yes, that's what it comes down to. Y'all have a good one, and I'll talk to you next time. The information in this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or right has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not a doctor. The U.S. government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine,

Starting point is 00:41:16 and there is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who studies herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say is accurate or true. I can tell you what herbs have been traditionally used for. I can tell you my own experience and if I believe an herb has helped me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb anyone recommends, you are treating yourself.

Starting point is 00:41:40 You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, a sensitivity, an underlying condition that no one else even shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog, you agree to be responsible for yourself

Starting point is 00:42:01 to your own research, make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever.

The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Hops

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