The Ricochet Podcast - Faith in Princes, Faith in God

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

As promised our old friend David Limbaugh returns to the podcast to rant a bit and maybe pitch a few books on the side. We talk open borders and Martha’s Vineyard and then cover his latest volume, The Resurrected Jesus: The Church in the New Testament, which he wrote with his daughter, Christen Limbaugh Bloom. We also welcome in American Enterprise Institute scholar Nicholas Eberstadt (fresh from... Source

fix that. Make me say it right. That doesn't seem right. I have a dream. This nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. We have a process in place to manage migrants at the border. We're working to make sure it's safe and orderly and humane. With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Democracy simply doesn't work. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lylex. Today we talk to David Limbaugh about things then and now, and Nick Everstedt about men without work. Let's have ourselves a podcast.

I can hear you! Welcome, everybody, to the Ricochet Podcast, number 610. How did we get to 610? Well, easy. Well, no, it wasn't that easy. It took people like you. People like you who went to Ricochet.com, saw what it was, saw the community they've been looking for all these years on the web and signed up immediately and have never looked back. But if you haven't joined Ricochet, you ought to. Go there, take a look, and we'll see you in the member feed, which is where all the fun happens. I'm James Lylex in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A bit cold, a bit drank, a bit British. Rob Long is in, I presume, back in Gotham. I am. He's wearing a New Orleans Saints hat. We can get to that in just a second or not. Peter Robinson will be gallivanting along soon enough. But right out of the gate, let's go to our guest, David Limbaugh. How are you doing, David? Welcome back to the show. Great. Thanks for having me. So I don't know where you live, but I assume that it is some Tony Beachfront community where you're having to deal with an influx of 50, maybe even 51 people that our nation's governors have human trafficked into your neighborhood.

So are you having that problem? I have a conflict of interest in discussing this topic because my fourth vacation home happens to be at Martha's Vineyard. But no, I live in Missouri and I happen to be in Nashville now on this robust book tour that we're on going to Governor Huckabee's show tonight, which should be fun. Well, we'll get to the book in a second. And as Hugh Hewitt always reminds his guests, you should say the book's titles whenever possible. You missed an opportunity there, David. Your book is called? The Resurrected Jesus. Yeah, I'm just kind of tired of self-promoting. I'm a selfless individual.

We drag you here, and we'll use the jaws of life to get answers out of you uh but david and rob so apparently this was uh sending the immigrants to the venezuelan immigrants to martha's vineyard was human trafficking at its worst using human beings as pawns and the rest of it lord knows that the biden administration has never sent anybody anywhere um a stunt a trick to own the libs right but what happened in martha's vineyard rob you're closer to that community than dav or myself. They freaked out. That's what happened. They freaked out. They have like 100 National Guardsmen there for about 80, something less than 80.

National Guardsmen? Immigrants. Illegal immigrants. Actually, there's a slight difference here. There's a whole bunch of things going on. One is like you'd get a sense from Ron DeSantis that he's like, wait, wait a minute. I want in on this too i feel like the governor of texas is getting too much press so that's my one of my cynical

interpretations the other one is um the response from the left has been this is outrageous you're just using these people's political pawns as as if that was somehow worse than trying to hide them in different places i mean the bite administration is sending them all over the place quietly. It's a longstanding tradition. I said this at Gutfeld last night. When I was living in LA, the mayor routinely put homeless people on buses and sent them to Las Vegas.

And Mayor Bloomberg routinely put homeless people on buses and sent them to Miami Beach. This was actually, this is considered standard practice for a long time. The difference here, I mean, I said this on Gutfeld too, and I kind of really do mean it. I said it as a joke back then, but I really do mean it. But it's slightly different.

These are Venezuelans fleeing a socialist nightmare, the Hugo Chavez disaster. It is a socialist disaster that hugo chavez created in venezuela and that many americans celebrities and political science professors and media pundits alike praised they liked hugo chavez they supported hugo chavez some of them even went down to caracas and made movies about hugo chavez so my my theory is this is that we should take all of the Venezuelan refugees and asylum seekers that we possibly can who are fleeing socialism

because they want to come to a freedom-loving America, and we should send back in an exchange program all of the celebrities and media pundits and academics who loved it so much back then. And it should be equal, you know, one for one. So we net balance. So we get rid of people who don't like America and like socialism. And we get people who hate socialism and like America.

That seems like a win-win. I remember that David Limbaugh. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You just can't do that. The Godfather. You have to be an intro here. We should be sending Venezuelans to Cape Girardeau and send David to Venezuela. We just have to note that Peter Robinson has joined the chat.

And so Peter and David, I'll put it to you. This moving of immigrants around the however makes it sound as if they're not welcome where they are, which violates the highest law of the land, namely the poem on the black and the Statue of Liberty. So how is it that what's what sort of cognitive dissonance, what sort of internal stroke is the left going to have when they realize that they're behaving in the way that the fascist authoritarian GOP is doing? Or will they just sort of forget about it? No, there's no cognitive dissonance.

They don't hold themselves to the same standards. There is a robust lack of self-awareness. And I analogize this to parents not disciplining their kids. The digital media, the digital oligarchy, the mainstream media, the liberal establishment, they are all in cahoots to cover for democrats democratic politicians and anything they do therefore they don't they're never slapped on the wrist for the outrageous things they do and say the outright lies they're saying the idea that they pretend to be outraged at 50 people in their neck of the wood and they don't care about the millions coming across the border, let alone the 100,000 deaths from fentanyl, the terrorists coming in. It is so bad. It is such a ridiculous, objectively ridiculous argument that it almost shouldn't be dignified. I mean, I just I really am appalled by their outright propaganda in every issue. But here, it's laughable, and it would be laughable, and they wouldn't have the guts to say it publicly

if they were held to any kind of account. Right. And now they are being held to account, as far as I can tell. Not in any strict sense. Yes. Greg Abbott is sending, and by the way, I did read up on this. It's not as if, the way this is being portrayed Ron DeSantis is

Marching illegal immigrants onto airplanes at gunpoint and shipping them off to the frozen, right? It's nonsense The immigrants are told various options One of these options is Martha Vineyard and apparently a couple dozen of them say oh, yeah, I've heard of that I'll go there and off they go It's totally voluntary. But the notion that the federal government has under dark of night for months and months and months been loading up airplanes without any say-so by state or local governments and relocating people who have crossed this country illegally, again, under dark of night. That is an outrage. And if it takes, I almost don't mind if Greg Abbott is accused of a stunt. I almost don't mind if Ron DeSantis is accused of simple political gamesmanship here. If it's a stunt and if it's gamesmanship to show the elite what people in communities

across the country have been forced to come to view as normal, I'm all for it. And Peter, it implies that it's a stunt just for purely political purposes. You can call it a stunt. It is exposing what these people are doing. They're not talking about the victims, the real victims on the border. It's destroying the lives of these property owners. And then, as we said, everybody else. Imagine somebody having free access to your backyard and you can't do anything about it. Imagine the federal government preempting the state authorities who are trying to keep people out. It's like we're trying to just end the country not just destroy

it to end it i've never seen anything like it and it's also kind of funny i mean this i mean i i accept that there's for there's the human cost to this to to a um a ruleless chaotic border i agree with everything david said but there is something delicious and something diabolical. I mean, you could just see governor Ron DeSantis sitting in his office with a big map of the country and trying to decide is, is it Ann Arbor? It's not Ann Arbor.

And I said, Berkeley. Nah, it's not Berkeley. You're like, is it, where's, where's,

wait a minute. I got it. And then he got it. Or the other way to do the scene is that there's some young assistant, some aide who's like going to hitch his wagon to Governor Ron DeSantis and knows this guy is going to go all the way to the White House. And I want to go all the way with him. You know, some really ambitious young person. Wait, wait, wait, Governor. How about Martha's Vineyard?

And in that moment, he made his career. We'll be hearing about this person forever. Just so, and I know, while I have a wild sense of humor off politics, and I'm just seriously heart attack on time, and I realized that I totally agree with your point. And let me just jump to a point on that. I think it's kind of analogous to what rush did all these years and why he was triple dog hated by the he made fun of them they couldn't stand that he tweaked them and this is delicious delicious great work yeah yeah it's just too it's too it's also just shows you what um a smart strategic political mischief maker can do oh yeah you know it's not a blunderbuss this was a scalpel this was martha's vineyard it couldn't be i mean i if i were in that room maybe say oh please come

on that's a little too on the nose we could be a little bit we shouldn't be a little bit more subtle no that was yeah a direct hit it was perfect well the martha's vineyard people were saying of course we don't have the infrastructure for this. We have a housing crisis on the island, which I loved, you know, which meant that bedroom number nine was temporarily unavailable because they had the workmen were installing new wainscoting. And then they had to go to GoFundMe to raise thirty six thousand dollars to get these people out of here because they couldn't, of pony up from their own pocket i think their idea perhaps you know that is as long as they have the sign with all of the exhortations on the side about what they believe we believe that nope in this house we believe that uh love is love that no person is illegal that science is science and so so forth that that service should receive an honorable wage right that sign insulates them from everything and perhaps if it came down to it they'd

say all right all right, all right. Maybe if there's some sort of subscription service where every three months they bring an illegal person to my door and I take care of them and I give them soap and a bath and then they go away. But subscription services, of course, are all the rage these days. What you don't know is whether or not the company is going to be around, right? You sign up for something and then poof, it goes. Well, here's the deal. Quip, they've been around forever. We love them.

You know what else has been around forever? Social interaction. Yes and no, though. We had that little gap there for a couple of years where we had our face swaddled. No more. No more ripping off the masks and beaming at each other again with our pearly whites. But are they really not pearly? Well, they should be.

Good pearly white teeth, that's good health. Good health starts with good habits too. And Quip, well, they make it easy. They make it easy by delivering the oral care essentials you need to take care of your mouth. The Quip electric toothbrush is loved by over 7 million mouths and it's got, all right, can we count them off? One, timed sonic vibrations with 30 second pulses to guide a dentist recommended two minute clean. Two, a lightweight and sleek design for adults and kids. No wires, no bulky chargers to weigh you down. Three, a multi-use travel cover that doubles as a mirror mount for less clutter in your bathroom. And four, reusable handles in a range of sleek metal hues, including

best-selling all-black and all-pink, as well as bright plastic colors to make sure that there's a pop to your interior bathroom counter. Are you on top of your brushing? Well, you can upgrade your Quip with a new smart motor. A new smart motor. It'll track and improve your brushing with the free Quip app. And get this, you can even earn amazing rewards like free refills and products, target gift cards, and more just for brushing. But beyond the brush, Quip has everything you need to build a complete routine. Try their sugar-free refillable gum. It's got long-lasting mint flavor, delicious, and it comes with a dispenser. And there's their refillable mouthwash that's four times concentrated, so it's good for you and the planet. Quip delivers it all every three months

from $5. Shipping, it's free, so you can save money and skip the hustle and bustle of in-store shopping. Stylish and affordable electric brushes starting at just $25. You won't be paying through the teeth for better oral care. So you go to getquip.com slash ricochet. Right now, getquip.com slash ricochet and you'll get your first refill free. That's your first refill free at getquip.com slash ricochet. Spell G-E-T-Q-U-I-P.com slash ricochet. Quip, the good habits company. And we thank Quip for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, David, we could pick your mind on politics all day, but you got a book out, and I know you're dreadfully tired of having discussing it, but let us get to it. The name of the book, following a number of books that you've had, you're the author,

of course, of Jesus is Risen and Jesus on Trial. The next is The Resurrected Jesus. And right there in the title, you have the sticking point for an awful lot of people. So tell me why you named this book what you did, what it's about, and whether or not you think your book is going to help to undo that sticking point for some people, which I know is a lot to ask. Well, being the person who lacks integrity as I do, I hate to be this candid, but the truth is Regnery titled the book. They always like to put Jesus in the title. I think it makes it sell better.

But okay, now back to, I'll be serious. This book, Jesus is Risen was the previous book. It covered the book of Acts and the Apostle Paul's first six epistles. This is just marching through the New Testament. I want to cover every book of the New Testament as I go. I already discussed the Gospels. Now we're going through. So these are the next seven of Paul's epistles, the prison epistles, which he wrote when he was under house arrest in Rome, Philemon, Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and the pastoral epistles, which he wrote to his colleagues and understudies, Timothy and Titus. So the point is, I want to, we want, my daughter and I wrote this I co-wrote this book, Kristen Bloom, to help people

who are intimidated by Scripture to become more familiarized with it, to help them understand what it means from a lay level. We're not theological doctors, but we have studied the Bible a lot. It's to help facilitate people getting closer to the Word of God. And in this case, we added prayer because my daughter Kristen is such a prayer warrior and so spirit-filled that I wanted her to add prayers in addition to helping me with the text. She has these beautiful prayers that I think that are content related to the book and the Bible that are designed to bring the reader into interaction with the scripture. And it's kind of like a commentary and a devotional, this book. That's the goal, like a Bible study writ large. Darrell Bock Can you guys hear me? I have two dogs

playing in the background. Is that okay? David Pryor It's fine. Canines gambling about under the leaves of the fields is just perfect. Darrell Bock I think they may be in prayer, though, David. I think you should send them to Martha's Vineyard. So, David, how long does it take you to write one of these books? You know, I'm kind of a maniac once I start. I think the lion's share of it is four months.

You know, it starts out, I start out slow every time. And then I get going. And so at the pace I start, it would be eight months. It ends up being four. But then the interactive process would be editing with Kristen back and forth. It took a good eight months for everything considered. I got a great editor at Batting for the last eight books, I think. And so I just love the back and forth we do.

And it makes it so much better. So I just wanted to say that I love these books, and what I love about them is the reminder that they're, now there's a fair shot. I'm in the spare bedroom, and the dogs are bouncing around all over the place. So what I love is I like these approaches to history where books are written for ordinary Americans for history. I love this strand of self-improvement of learning that goes right back through American popular culture. It was the impetus behind the old book of the month's club. It was the way James Michener wrote his books. He'd take great big topics, Texas or Poland or Spain, and he'd write a fat book about it. And by the time you finished that book, it was in

education. You knew a lot about that book. And so, what I like is that smart people, it pains me to do so, but I include you in that group, David. Smart people can study up on something as ancient as the Scriptures and demonstrate to the rest of us the basic accessibility. Those Scriptures are there. They're accessible to ordinary people who know how to read and write and think just a little bit. You don't need to go to school and get three doctorates in Aramaic to understand what St. Paul was talking about, right? That's exactly the point. Thanks for making that point.

People, I believe, are intimidated by the Bible. Where do I begin? I mean, a lot of people, of course, aren't. But some people are. There's a big universe of people who are. And I find that because I can relate to them. I used to be, when I first became a Christian, I mean, I was raised as a Christian, but I really didn't embrace it until later. When I really realized

I'm holding in my hand the Word of God, I got so excited about it, but I go, what do I do now? And I started reading books about it, and they really helped me. And I wanted to do a crash course, an autodidact crash course. And I don't know if I did that, but there was a point where I kept reading and reading and studying that I felt pretty conversant with it. And I want to help people get to that point, jumpstart there, accelerate their familiarity with the Bible and help them overcome the intimidation they feel. Because interacting with the Word of God, learning the Word of God, what's better than that? To actually read the Word, the advice, the instruction,

the wisdom of the God of the universe. And I don't want to understate my daughter Kristen's input. She was invaluable to this, and I love that. It's great. Peter, you also have like 30 kids, but don't forget, I'm not a Catholic. I'm the aberration. I'm a Protestant and have five kids. How ridiculous is that? That's weird. Yeah, totally ridiculous.

I've got so many questions, David. I love the first two so much, and I can't wait to read this one. I got it in the mail last week. Thank you. These are deep theological questions I have to ask. much and i can't wait to read this one i got it in the mail last week so thank you um can i like these are all the deep theological questions i have to ask um can you be a good christian and not believe in the resurrected jesus why if you don't believe in the resurrection you're not a christian with with all due respect i don't mean to be offensive the apostle paul the apostle paul said if if the resurrection is true is not true christians are the most to be offensive. The Apostle Paul said, if the resurrection is true, it is not true.

Christians are the most to be pitied, because they've given their lives for a lie. If Jesus Christ wasn't bodily resurrected, then we won't be, and there's nothing hereafter. It's pointless. It's all nothing. That doesn't necessarily follow, I would say, to argue. I mean, it is possible that there is something, and there's a lot afterwards, but it's different. It's not bodily resurrection. It is some sort of spiritual communities. I mean, again, I understand what you say. You can't be a Christian if you don't believe in the resurrection. But it's not.

There are other shadings to this. Fair point. Let me just say, mainstream Christianity teaches a bodily resurrection. I'm not here to judge and say, you can't be a good Christian. However we define it, there's a lot of different ideas. was Gnosticism, and it argued that physical matter was evil. Therefore, Jesus couldn't have been an actual human being, and therefore he really didn't die physically on the cross. I submit to you respectfully that that is essential to the Christian faith. Jesus becoming a human being to suffer the indignities of human existence, contraposed to how he felt, how he was in the Holy Trinity and eternity past in complete bliss, creating us knowing that we would fall and knowing the only way we could be redeemed and joined with him

is if he would become a human being, suffer everything that we suffered, die, and then be bodily resurrected so that we could too now that you can you can still choose to believe that there's no body resurrection we obviously believe it's all spiritual too but that but it's a there's a bodily resurrection well we're not here at art yeah we can get into the gnostic and pelagian heresies on another day right right right rob has more uh that he wants to do before we need we need to let Okay, sorry. No, no, it's okay. No, really, that was it. That was the heart of my question, because, I mean, I guess my follow-up,

and then if you're not a Christian, what, I mean, I have an answer to that. How valuable are these books to people who do not believe? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know where you were going with that. Okay. He's trying to broaden your market here. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know where you were going with that. Okay. He's trying to broaden your market here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've often said that, oh, I love, I want these books to appeal to nonbelievers.

We have a duty, a sacred duty, the Great Commission, to go out and evangelize. And I'm not one of these guys that beat people over the head. I think people that do that are admirable. But that's not my personality. I know how annoying those people can be. And some people are just annoying enough that they don't realize they're annoying and they can do it effectively. And that's great. But I can't.

I'm too self-conscious. I know because I used to make fun of people like that. So I can't be the guy that I used to make fun of. So I can't do that. But I feel like i'm rationalizing hey i'm i'm kind of doing my part a little bit by doing this in writing and and helping people that way but i there's nothing i would love more than to bring this down to the level of um of the person who is a skeptic even you know it's all obviously for the nuclear and i will say this i've had i've read and one person said, and this has happened, you know, tens of times, not more than that,

but tens of times for me, that I was brought to Christ by this book, and whether Jesus is on trial in the series. And obviously that's not my work, it's the work of the Holy Spirit. But that's gratifying. Oh, yeah, definitely. I think non-Christiansians if they will be patient they might be intrigued by this approach because it's yeah i was gonna what i was gonna say was that the first the first two were so like very very gentle walks through the story and that's one reason i'm looking for i mean so yeah which is it was a choice that you made which i think is a wonderful

choice yeah and i'm trying to be ecumenical I don't want to be, I'm offensive verbally with you guys. You know, I'm cantankerous, but I'm the opposite in books. And I don't mean to be, by the way, I only mean to state doctrine correctly, James. I'm not arguing. I don't, if you believe, if you don't believe in the bodily resurrection, more power to you. I don't, I don't know. I'm just trying to explain what I believe. Oh, I didn't know. I understand completely. The point that you might want to make, and I think we have to go after this, unless Robert has one more, is this, is that even if somebody is not a Christian themselves, they have a duty, perhaps, to understand the books

that were the intellectual framework of the society in which we live. Now, we may be moving towards a post-Christian society, fewer people going to church, fewer people professing membership in organized religion, etc., but you can't deny that this is the crucible in which this country and this culture was formed. So, even if somebody says, I'm never going to believe in that stuff, your books provide an entry point where they can begin to understand the arguments and the stories and the ideas that formed our culture and where we are. Thank you.

That's great. Exactly. We'll pull that quote and print it on the... Will do. I'm counting on Scott for that. Peter is raising his finger in the international gesture of one more question. One more question. Una pregunta.

Yes. Gracias, senor. So here, back in the early 80s, when I was studying in England, I paid a visit on a British journalist, famous journalist, although who knows if anybody remembers him anymore, called Malcolm Muggeridge. Oh, my gosh, yes. Oh, yeah. And his conversion.

Yeah. Yes, yes. Oh yeah, and his conversion. Yeah. Yes, yes. And Muggeridge said he often thought of himself, this is late 70s, Margaret Thatcher has just taken office, but it's not clear she's going to succeed. And Muggeridge drew this analogy between our time then and early 5th century Rome. And he said he often found himself thinking that he was in the position of Augustine in Africa as Augustine, this very learned man who had studied in Rome and understood all of Roman literature and law and all that Roman civilization had achieved, as Augustine hears of the first sack of Rome by Alaric and the barbarians entering Rome in, I think, the year is 47. And at that moment, Augustine knows that the whole world that he values in human terms, the learning, the literature, the sense of history and law and

order that a thousand years of Rome has ended. And yet we refer to him as Saint Augustine because he found ways even in that wreckage to lead a good and holy and intellectual life. He wrote The City of God, after all. Is that, now, we're not St. Augustine, we're not classical scholars, things are not as dramatic yet as the sack of Rome when Alaric and the barbarians entered the city and went around smashing everything they could for three days, but do you feel that's roughly where you are, David? Are you trying to work out how we can continue to lead good lives

as so much that we value falls apart around us? Well, I know you don't mean this, but I don't consider myself even in the same universe as Augustine. But by the way, I love his confessions. Oh, my gosh. Unbelievable. That work. The City of God, too.

But confessions is so relatable, to use a common term. I look at it a little differently. I look at not living a good life. We obviously need to do that, too. Anyway, I look at standing in the breach. That's not my dog. It's my phone. And I have it on silent. Don't ask me

why it rings anyway. I think we have a duty to stop this madness and to preserve the greatest nation in the history of the world against all the external and internal threats. And I haven't yet given up, nor have you guys. But when I see what's going on, Sodom and Gomorrah have nothing on us. Ancient Corinth,

I used to read the New Testament and think, boy, this decadence, we'll never get there. We're beyond that in many cases. We have, with this gender confusion, which denying that God created man and woman, which the Bible clearly states, by the intentional murdering and glorification of babies, by the mutilation of young children, by the intentional disintegration of law and order, by the intentional opening of borders, knowing that 100,000 fentanyl deaths are going to occur each year. This is deliberate. And when people on our side say the Biden administration is incompetent, BS, they're ideologues, they're ushering Marxism in,

it's inescapable. And even on this idea of inflation, they know they're propagandists. When they say the Inflation Reduction Act, they know that's a lie. Any classical, any economist, except the most idiotic one, knows that when you inject more money into the economy, it's going to hurt, it's going to exacerbate inflation. So this isn't incompetent by economists. It's whoever the ideologues are who are pulling Biden's string to deliberately do this so they can redistribute more money, so they can undermine institutions further, whatever they're doing. But whatever they're doing is deliberate destruction of the United States of America. Many people are unwitting dupes, but this is spiritual warfare. We're

watching objective evil in front of our faces, and to call it anything other than spiritual warfare is actually a moral insult to the people who are perpetrating it, because that would mean they really know what they're doing. I think they're pawns of the evil one. actually a moral insult to the people who are perpetrating it because that would mean they really know what they're doing. I think they're pawns of the evil one. Ladies and gentlemen, from the Bishop of Hippo to the Consumer Price Index in one swell foop. Thank you, David. And I also would like to remember from this a takeaway quote, that's not my dog, it's my phone, which is a statement. It would have meant nothing to anybody about 40 years ago, but now we know exactly

what you mean. Hey, good luck with this one. Can't wait to see what book comes next out of this. Get cracking on it so we can have you back. Thanks for everything, David, and we'll talk to you later. Thank you. You wouldn't have me on if I wasn't a tangential thinker. Thank you very much. That's exactly right. Yes,

we would. Yes, we would. Yes, we would. Thanks a lot, you guys. Bye-bye. Thanks, Dave. And now we welcome to the podcast Nick Eberstadt, holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, who writes extensively on demographics and economic development.

His books include The Tyranny of Numbers, Russia's Peacetime Demographic Crisis, it's germane today, and most recently, Men Without Work, America's Invisible Crisis. Nick, welcome to the show. Thank you. Men Without Work, Men With Idle Time, men with all sorts of online glowing rectangles to distract them, men divorced from their traditional missions. Men unsure what their role is going to be in this new society. But we really shouldn't talk about

men in crisis, right? Because that's, you know, men. That's, you know, men. They're not a victim class, I guess. No, no. So you wrote this book hoping for failure, I guess, but we're glad that you did. Tell us what you want people to take away from it, or better yet, since we have a crisis of men without work, what do we do? I'm releasing a second edition this month, which takes into account what's happened since the COVID pandemic, and I suppose the good news is that the men without work aren't alone anymore. But the bad news is that now we see some of the men without work syndrome

that was gradually building for over half a century from the 60s to the present in our 25 to 54-year-old prime age men.'am, we see some of this flight from work now taking place in other groups in the 55 plus and maybe even in younger women. But for the stick with the men for now, we've got these wonderful, glowingly low unemployment rates that we hear all this happy talk about. At the same time, we've got work rates for guys that are depression scale. Actually, they're worse than the last sounding from the depression, which was taken in early 1940. 40. Right now, we've got almost 14% of prime age guys with no paid work at all in the United States. And for most of the 21st century, the work rate for guys has actually been worse than it was in early 1940, when the national unemployment rate was about 15%. So, we'd say it's a depression

scale crisis, and it has been gradually building since the 1960s in this almost straight-line fashion that sort of defies the conventional wisdom about economic and structural change being the driver for all of these troubles. So much here. There is so much here. You and I just did an episode of Uncommon Knowledge in which we talked for an hour on a related but different topic, which is the demographic collapse in what we might loosely call the modern world. It's not just Europe and the United States, although it's bad in Europe and it has become bad in the United States, although it's bad in Europe, and it has become bad in the United States. It's also very bad in China. Societies,

I don't know quite how you want to put it, but the mathematical point is straightforward. Societies failing to reproduce themselves and therefore beginning to shrink simply fewer people 10 years from now than today all right that's one point this different point of men staying home i saw a figure i can't remember where it was and therefore i have to treat it very gingerly, although I'm sure you being you, you'll know the figure and be able to give us the citation. But apparently for some years now, it's not just that colleges, fancy institutions like the ones we were fortunate enough to attend, it's not just that they finally managed to get past the throes of coeducation and they're having a little trouble balancing men and women. That's not the case at all. Women are now persistently in the majority

in colleges, college after college after college across the country. 55-45 is becoming a kind of new norm. And I read a piece the other day saying that it could soon become 60-40, and admissions offices are simply living with that. No affirmative action to recruit men, no effort to, again, men are simply not considered a protected or a disadvantaged class despite all the numbers. Here's my question. Both of these trends are so big and so pervasive that they affect everything from economics to the tenor of our own culture, to the lack of self-confidence we feel as a civilization. Why is it that the only person, this will sound as though I'm flattering you, honestly I'm not, this is just stark ignorance and curiosity. Why is it that the only person talking about these gigantic elephants in the society is Nick

Eberstadt? Journalists don't seem to have any way to talk about it. Think tank after think tank, you're the only think tank AEI. You and AEI are the only ones doing rigorous, thorough searching work on the meaning of this. Why is that? Why are we so uninterested in this huge, alarming trend? Well, Peter, thank you very much. I don't think I am the only one, but I do have a kind of a short attention span, and I like to look for problems that are hiding in plain sight. So, sometimes I do a kind of multitask on a couple of things at the same time. It is astonishing to me, beyond surprising,

that our describers and our deciders in our society nowadays are so cut off, so out of touch with some of the main trends that have been transforming our country, that they kind of missed this collapse of work for men. And even since the first edition of this book that came out in 2016, there, one of the kind of sophisticated critiques of my work was more or less, Eberstadt, you moron, you don't understand. There's no work out there. So, of course, the guys aren't working. Well, that's a kind of a harder argument to make nowadays when we've got a national labor shortage staring us in the face, and we've got 11 million unfilled jobs, and employers basically everywhere begging for applicants, no matter what their level of skills. I mean, well, you don't need a skill other than the skill of showing up regularly on time

sober to get millions of jobs from these openings nowadays. At the same time, though, that we've had this spike in job openings, we've had a slump in workforce presence. We're about four million shy in our workforce of where we would have expected to be on pre-pandemic trends. And this is where we get to kind of like the new face of the flight from work. It's not all extra guys at home. We're seeing a drop-off in older workers. Older workers were the only ray of sunshine in the employment tableau before COVID for about a generation. They were the only group that was actually increasing its work rates and its labor presence. And we're also seeing some, I don't want to go too far on this because I think it's a yellow flashing light right now,

not a red flashing light, but we're seeing some funny things going on with younger women that are starting to look as if maybe we're having a mimicking of the men without work problem. Nick, thanks for joining us. This is Rob Long in New York. So you set me up for the minute, my question. All right. So I, you know, wake up in the morning, get a cup of coffee. I read the newspaper and the newspaper tells me that unemployment is at record low. And I close the newspaper. Oh, that's good. Good news. And now you're telling me, well, not so fast. What should we be looking at aside from participation numbers and,

and I guess birth rates, what, what are the on our dashboard of healthy, unhealthy, red light, green light, as you put it, or yellow light, what are like three or four things we should be looking at that could be getting better or maybe getting better or maybe getting worse or that should replace in my daily or quarterly dashboard? S&P, Dow, unemployment, productivity. I mean, productivity gains have been sold for the past 30 years as unalloyed benefit. And part of what you're saying is that not so fast. So what should I be looking at? Well, Rob, one of the things which isn't on the dashboard for some reason that mystifies me is our longer-term growth rate. You'd think the quants would find this one kind of easy to get,

but if you look at the U.S. growth rate since the beginning of the 21st century, our per capita growth rate is just barely over 1% per annum. This is like for a 22-year period. This is less than half its earlier post-war tempo. You want to explain what's wrong in America, why people are discontent and full of angst. Maybe go to take a look at this. On our current tempo, per capita incomes double every 63 years. I mean, you don't live to see it in your lifetime if you started work in your 20s, right?

So that's kind of an important one. The work rate, what real economists, what labor economists would call the E-pop rate, the employment-to-population rate, is a very important one. And that has been heading south in the United States for prime age men since the 1960s. And like I say, that's at depression levels. You really can't get general prosperity when you've got depression scale employment rates and you know but do remember that the employment statistics that we use were set up to fight the previous war right they were set up to uh to fight the depression uh they didn't have them then they were they were about to be on uh unveiled in late 1941 but something else came up and they had to put them off for a while. So what's happening?

I think the beginning of the pandemic, people thought to themselves, I mean, at least I did. I remember talking to people about it and reading articles and making jokes and saying, oh, you know what? You know, nine months from lockdown. Baby boom. Ten months from the pandemic. Baby boom. Just expected this baby. But nobody's leaving the house or home. What else are they going to do? That did not happen. 10 months from the pandemic, baby boom. Just expected this baby boom.

Nobody's leaving the house or home. What else are they going to do? That did not happen. It seemed to be an example of some of the things you're talking about, but an amplification of this, what is it, like deep-seated pessimism? Deep-seated, this kind of dark view of the future. I mean, I read articles and i think i know people like wow we don't know we're gonna have kids because you know climate change or some

other nonsense right is that have we have we succeeded in terrifying doing this one thing americans i would never believe they could do which is to be terrified of the future that doesn't seem very american to me uh well um you know it's it's funny what happens when you get out and talk to people i mean i'm a dinosaur and i'm a senior citizen but i uh well so is peter it's okay i do talk to uh young and sometimes and it's it's it's astonishing uh how afraid kids are i use the word kids you know, broadly to describe anybody younger than me. And so, but it is astonishing how angst-filled, discontent, and uncertain about almost everything everything the let's say the 18 to 34 set is now to to tie this back to the employment world just for a moment since it's not entirely unrelated and one of the things that has happened since

grandpa here was a boy is that we've seen the death of the summer job in the United States. I mean, there was a time in the 70s and earlier when, if you wanted any sort of spending money, you went out and you got a summer job, or at least you tried to get a summer job, and more or less everybody was on that beat. It is a tiny fraction of 15 to 17-year-olds who are even in the market for a summer job now. At the upper end, there's all of this enrichment stuff. At the other end, there's all of this remedial stuff. And what this means in practice is that most people who are entering the labor force today,

you know, haven't experienced work, paid work, until they're in their 20s. And how do you think that is going to go, as opposed to knowing what it's all about for 10 years by the time you hit showtime? By the way, Nick, James and I try so hard, but thank you. You've reinforced it. We're always saying, Rob, all you have to do is show up on time and sober. It's not that hard. What's one or the other? That's what I always say.

You can't have both. Life is about choices here. So, Nick, I listened to all of this. I'm a dinosaur too, but you and I are dinosaurs who, we grew up on the same plains. We dragged our great brontosaurus tails across Washington in the 80s. And so I have an instinct that I suspect has at least crossed your mind. You being you will have thought it through.

So I hear about large intractable problems like this. That's step one. Step two is I begin to become suspicious and I think, maybe I don't understand the details here, but I'm pretty sure the federal government is in the middle of it somewhere it's regulation or taxation or somehow or other something the leave the American people alone and they will form families and work hard and found new schools if the public schools are letting them down. My impulse here is, I don't know whether it's Ron DeSantis, but we elect somebody.

We change the political culture beginning perhaps this fall by retaking the House. You see, the way my mind immediately goes to politics, and I don't know, you again being you, you'll know the statistics, but it's certainly clear that the economy was in a mess. Young people were listless and full of fears in the late 70s. And then the United States experienced this dramatic renewal, which represented a renewal of all kinds, marriages, growth rates, an economic expansion that continued through the Clinton years for almost a quarter of a century. I guess what I'm saying is, is a repeat possible? Is the country capable, two questions, Is the country capable of another act of national self-restoration? And the second question, if so, is the first step the same step we took in 1980? Must we elect

new leaders who will roll the government back and reveal the virtues of the people themselves? Or am I just hopelessly naive, brontosaur thunking around out of touch? Well, maybe a Stegosaurus. Maybe even T-Rex, who knows? Your insight about the government's complicity in the problem, I think, is absolutely spot on. I mean, part of what I try to show in this new edition of Men Without Work, the post-pandemic edition, is the unintended consequences of the massive pandemic emergency rescue program, right? I mean, we all know that government interventions have unintended consequences.

And if you have kind of the mother of all interventions, you're going to get the mother of all unintended consequences. in the ultimately successful effort to avoid Great Depression II, the government borrowed a fire hose of money and shot it at American households. And actually, it's the only national economic crisis that I know of in which people's disposable income actually increased, and their consumer spending increased, and there was so much money being shot at people that they couldn't spend it all or didn't care to. So we had a doubling of national savings rate. I kid you not. I mean, I show you, I show this, but a doubling of national savings rates in 2020 and 2021. And that kind of like windfall amounted to over two and a half trillion dollars in, you know, in people's pockets, okay? So just think of that as kind of like COVID policy lottery winnings, right?

There are a lot of people in the country who have taken those COVID policy lottery winnings from the various wealth effects and are, I think, in premature retirement at the moment. So that's a direct consequence of unintended government policy, what you see right there. Now, can we fix the broader tableau of structure of fracturing things that are ailing us. I am a little weary of putting my faith in princes, but I take very much your point that we can do an awful lot better as a society and as a polity than we have been doing. I mean, I think some of the special sauce is going to be in civil society rather than in Washington. I mean, what is it going to take for younger people to think less, pardon me for putting it this way, but for thinking less like Europeans,

for realizing that there's reason to be patriotic, there's reason to be optimistic, there's real reason to have confidence in the future. Some of this is going to have to be, I think, a sort of an awakening on our own turf here. But there's a lot of potential. And the idea that we've kind of closed a chapter and that the 1980s are an irreproducible act is, I think, laughable. So, for example, I saw a statistic the other day, which I'm about to bungle, but I'll at least get the vectors correct. Something in like 1980, there were 10,000 homeschooled students. And coming out of the COVID lockdown, there are 5 million. Classical learning schools, charter schools, those of us who paid attention to education as a problem and could see what the school unions were doing, just lying on top of

public schools like mattresses, making it impossible to teach what needed to be taught. And during COVID, as far as I can tell, this is the one hopeful sign to come out of COVID. During COVID, parents, regardless of their ideological dispositions, just said, that's enough. These teachers unions are not interested in my kids. They're interested in themselves. And we have, as best I can tell, measuring the effect is difficult, but we do seem to have thousands of charter and classical education schools being formed across the country. And Nick Everstedt says, yes, that's exactly the kind of thing we need. Correct? Absolutely. I mean, if you wanted to put your finger on the

worst of all of the COVID calamities, and I'm even thinking about the million victims who we've lost lost to COVID. The worst long-term consequence was the educational shutdowns. And your colleague at Hoover, Rick Hanushek, he's a fantastic economist, and he's done the numbers. And he suggests that the United States has suffered about maybe a 4% long-term wealth loss, not like tomorrow, but for generations because of the bungling of the educational response during COVID. And yes, I mean, I think one of the great things that's happening now is that parents all across the country are waking up a bit to what's been going on in their children's schools. And more and better education for our future generation is going to be a tremendous positive. It's scandalous what's happening in American education today. I mean, scandalous in the universities, but it's also scandalous in the K through 12. Because, I mean, it's outrageous that young men and women can't graduate in so

many places with a skill that's going to be able to provide them a living. We can kind of back and fill, and maybe this is where policy comes in, with what used to be called vocational. You know that vocational is now a politically incorrect term. You're not supposed to use this term anymore, but we know what it means. We need to have skills for people, whether or not they go to college. We need to turn the disability insurance archipelago upside down and start again. We need to have a work first principle in our social welfare program so that people aren't just, you know, stumbling into helplessness and dependency, but, you know, get back into society. There's one thing which I don't think that we talk about

at all that ought to get more attention. You know, we have about 25 million ex-cons in the United States today, and only about 2 million of them are behind bars right now, which means that like 90% of cons or ex-cons are actually in our society, in our general society. So that's 20 plus million invisible people, because Uncle Sam doesn't bother to keep any information on them. That's one in seven adult men, probably more than one in seven of these prime age guys that I'm describing. There are a lot of human beings there who are salvageable and redeemable and would like to be back in the workforce and back in families and back in societies. And we might be able to do a little bit with this on an evidence-based policy sort of approach if we have any evidence. But for reasons that baffle me, Washington, D.C., there's this omerta about inquiring about ex-con population in America. And I've tried to encourage red senators' offices, blue senators' offices, male senators,

female senators. Everybody pats me on the head and says, Nick, this is a great idea, and kicks me out of the office. It's mystifying to me. Well, now and then you get the ban the box movement, which attempts to restore, summarize to these people in as much as they don't want employers to be able to. I mean, yeah, it's a complex issue. And one of the reasons that people shove it under the rug, I think, is because, well, you know, they did something bad and also their guys and they're really low on the social order here. But that's another book or maybe it's this one as well or another edition of Men Without Work. Thanks for joining us, Nick. And we hope to have you back again soon. Again,

we could probably keep you on for an hour. And I have my theory as to, you know, when I was a dinosaur in the 80s, lapping at the waters of Lake Agassiz, we had our own reasons for angst that seemed to be similar to those to what kids have today. But that's another story, and I'll get to it probably after you're gone. So go have lunch. Thanks. Nick Eberstadt, I want to say this much. You are a marvel. We have no social or educational problems in this country, none, that you don't know what to do about, or that at least you don't know where the first step ought to be taken. You are a marvel, and Lord, do I hope that sometime within the next few years, we get a concatenation of politics in this country where somebody says, Nick Eberstadt,

you're going to go run HHS. That's my little wish for you. I didn't do that badly, did I? I didn't do that badly. That's my wish for you that sounds like punishment Peter so I failed the interview I wish better I dream bigger dreams for you Nick that seems vindictive alright

go tell Mary we were very nice to you thank you man all the best bye bye you're right you wish people like Nick weren't involved in all the high elements of government and the rest, or for that matter, you know, running the

charities and things that take your money and do that and this and the other and don't ascribe to a variety of social engineering and social justice policies that sometimes seems to undermine the very reason you're donating to the charity in the first place, he said, segueing into something. Yes, it is something to worry about. Unless, of course reason you're donating to the charity in the first place, he said, segueing into something. Yes, it is something to worry about.

Unless, of course, you are connected to Donors Trust. We're sponsored today by Donors Trust, and we're proud to be so, because they are the tax-friendly way to simplify your charitable giving without compromising your values. Is cancel culture coming for your charitable dollars? Big banks that sponsor charitable savings accounts, or donor-advised funds as they're formally called, have a history of slow walking or altogether blocking donations to conservative charities. Charities that have found themselves in the crosshairs of the woke mob include the Alliance Defending Freedom,

National Review Institute, National Rifle Association Foundation, Liberty Council, Turning Point USA, and others. Clearly, not every donor-advised fund is safe for conservatives. Let Donors Trust help manage your charitable giving. Donors Trust was built with our listeners in mind, and that would mean people who believe limited government

and constitutional rights are worth fighting for. If you already have a donor-advised fund, consider opening a rollover account. It can be done in three simple steps by calling our friends at Donors Trust. The Donors Trust team will work with you to protect your charitable legacy and help you achieve your charitable goals. Partner with a fund that matches your values. To learn more, download their prospectus at www.donortrust.org slash ricochet. That's donortrust.org slash ricochet. To align your giving with your values, visit www.donorstrust.org.

And we thank Donor's Trust for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And speaking of Ricochet and its podcasts and its meetups, here's Rob Long, founder, to tell you about new exciting things coming up. Favorite part of the whole podcast. If you remember Ricochet, we have some things to tell you. The Texas Tribune Festival program is coming soon. Texas' Breakout Politics and Policy Ideas event is happening next week, September 22nd through 24th in Austin. Cool Austin.

I don't mean temperature. I think it's kind of hot there, but it's very cool. Line up of big names you know, others you should, including one of our own from the Ricochet Network, David Drucker. We'll interview Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson. You will hear more of those names, I'm sure, coming up live on the TribFest stage on September 23rd. You can explore the full program. Grab tickets at TribFest, TribFest, all one word, T-R-I-B-F-E-S-T.org.

If you'd like to attend the event, use our special discount code because you're a Ricochet member. For a one-time 15% off one general admission ticket. Just go to Tribfest.org, enter code Ricochet15 in the promo code box located at the bottom of the registration widget, and you click apply, and you get your discount, and we will see you there. We will also see you, I hope, at the Ricochet meetups, because they're coming. Where? Okay, well, when you join Ricochet.com, you'll know. So join, and here are some hints.

Over the past few weeks we've talked about events that are going to go on in williamsburg virginia and huntsville alabama in october we've got one set for new orleans next year during french quarter fest i will do whatever it takes to be there we also have longtime member phil who will be visiting northern california next week he's hoping to catch up with some members in sacramento um and there's some talk of a meetup in the bay area in october november which is a perfect time to visit there, by the way. So our events are a little concentrated in places that may not be within your reach. We know that.

So there is a solution. Join Ricochet. Just give us a place and a time, and our members will come to you. That's what our members do. So for details on both the Texas Tribune Festival and the Ricochet meetups, go to ricochet.com slash events. Find the module in the sidebar of the site. Join Ricochet, and we will see you there. And, Rob, we understand you have to fly because your busy life takes you to meetings.

You've got pitches. So go in peace, and we'll explain the hat next week. Please, we need to explain the hat. And by the way, when I say explain the hat, that's another reason for you to join Ricochet, because you can listen and watch us as we make the sausage. Peter, so Rob's gone. Bye, Rob. See you later. What I was going to say to Nick was this.

Growing up in the 80s, we too had this sort of angst that kids today have, but for a different reason. We believed that there was a fighting chance that there was going to be a nuclear war that would just destroy everything so we had the existential thing hanging over our heads right but it was kind of a flip of a coin thing it was 50 50 i mean it could happen it could not everything the media seemed to point that it would because of ronald reagan um but it didn't happen today i think kids have got kids uh teens early think kids have got, kids, teens, early 20s, have got baked into their worldview the idea of climate emergency, climate crisis, and the inevitability of the unlivability of the planet. It's just factored into everything. They don't have kids because it's immoral. They don't want to drive a car because it's going to hurt the earth.

Everything hurts the earth. Everything is harm. Everything is killing this incredibly fragile planet, which can just, all the life on which can wink out in a second. And there's nothing they can do about it. And there's nothing that anybody seems to be doing about it at all. They talk around the margins, but we all know that there's, you know, until we really get serious, ban cars, dismantle industry, put everybody in houses, that it's just, it's lost. What's the point? It's like having an egg, like a scalding hot egg beater that's continuously, you know, liquefying the brain, whatever attention span that you have left.

And I think that's why they're unhappy. You know, I grew up in my, watched my daughter grow up in the middle of this, and I think she's navigated it well. She's had summer jobs, too. That's a very important part. She doesn't share that doom. She has normal human angst but does she come home for summer jobs does she do old-fashioned jobs well like she pump gas for the family or help farmers or what what kind of work is available these days uh we're not pumping gas people pump

their own what they can because the prices are so ridiculous and inside sales on the store are horrible because of biden's energy policies but no she would work in uh service retail service jobs where she would be in hot spaces dealing out food of a fried nature uh to people drastically uncomfortable learning how to deal with the public and then now she works at a crepe shop uh where she is not only coming up with the new flavors of crepes but they put her in charge of marketing and design and doing the posters and everything else. Good for her. That's a real job.

She's got a great work ethic. And I don't want to say that my daughter's okay, but everybody else is worried about climate change. But what other reasons would the youth have for this existential dread? Yeah, well, in the interview that I did about two, three, maybe four months ago by now with Jordan Peterson, which is up online, you can look at it on YouTube if you

want to. Jordan Peterson, toward the end of the interview, became very emotional. He actually came to tears and he made the point that you're making, which is that kids today get the climate is dying and you're responsible for it. The country is racist and you're responsible for that too. You've absorbed just by being raised in America and also Canada. The same thing is going on in Canada. Canada is important to Peterson because he is Canadian. You have imbibed racist outlook, racist tendency,

unconscious racism of which you're not even aware. Men are toxic and on and on and on. And I have to say, I tend to discount that stuff because like your daughter, my kids just ignore most of it. But Jordan Peterson said, no, no, no, I'm a clinical psychologist. People come to me with problems and lives are being ruined with this nonsense. Lives are being ruined because the kids believe this constant barrage of lies, constant barrage that they live in an evil, dying, polluted world, and that they themselves,

in ways they can't shed, in ways they can't correct, they themselves are implicitly guilty of racism, of damaging the climate and so forth. And by the time he had finished, he had tears in his eyes because people he talks to, he said, I can't tell you how many people I've seen whose lives are actually being injured by these lies. So, I don't doubt it. there's a lot of this stuff going on my own feeling is that the way to combat it is to point to the door at the beginning of the summer and say to the kids out there lie summer jobs go get them yes work does focus the mind and take you off these things it's all you know it's not a concentrated scheme that's been handed down from Davos and the WEF, but it's a it's sort of a group project by the transnational progressives to use those terms to make people roll their eyes to destroy the fundamental legitimacy of Western civilization. Now, they may believe that that's the thing to do because it's been so bad. It's been colonial. It's been racist. There's been that. And that we have to reconstruct in its

embers, in its ruins, something that's better, that is egalitarian, and that is socialistic, and that is technocratically run, and it will be better for everybody and better for the planet. I think some of them actually believe it. Some of them believe it because it's just simply what you have to say and believe to get on the gravy train. Some people don't believe it. Some of them believe it because it's just simply what you have to say and believe to get on the gravy train. Some people don't believe it at all, but find a means of exercising their own desire for power within it. Whatever the framework, you have people who believe that. The problem is that in doing all of these things, these toxic ideas which destroy any reason for Western society, the hope is that they will come around then to the replacement idea that they will offer.

But it's a remarkably unattractive one. There's no joy in it. There's no room for growth. There's no open fields in which to run. It is just simply an intersectional pyramid of grievances and obligations and problems in these things that strikes nothing less than a regimented society where people are identified by the most trivial and meaningless manners and judged accordingly. There's no fun or joy to what they offer other than some sort of

wink and a nod at whatever sybaritic orgiastic things that you want to do, as long as it doesn't involve meat, because meat kills the planet. So off you go into your rooms, have a big, oily mess of fleshy fun, and that's the one bit of freedom that we give you. We're not going to give you freedom of thought, because you may think the wrong things. We're not going to give you freedom of speech, because you may harm somebody with it. We're not going to give you freedom of movement, because then you might go someplace and emit carbon. There's no freedom to what they offer, and freedom is what Americans yearn for because it's the crucible in which we were forged, supposedly. So I don't see them succeeding. I just see them succeeding at destroying one of the most remarkable, or attempting to destroy one of the most remarkable societies that the planet has ever produced.

But here we are at episode 610, and I'm sure we were saying this at episode 110 as well. It's probably got a little bit worse here and there. It's probably a little better here and there. Always room for hope, right, Peter? That's why we're here. That's why we're on Ricochet, and that's why we're old boomers who are insisting that people should not despair but buck up and go out there and get a job exactly buck up james have a good weekend and up there in god's country well my wife's out in she's my wife's gone for the weekend and so it's me and the dog for three or four days

and i will go probably feral and mad by the end of it i'm in the same position by the way chili eating chili yes yes yes exactly and then i clean everything up before she comes you know and i i have to go buy new plants because i killed all the other ones that she left because i didn't water them i never remember to water anything anything ever it's just just not in me so what i'm going to do is probably go buy some green spring i read today that the chinese are painting their mountains green in order to make people think that they're more environmentally wonderful that they can show pictures of these vast mountain ranges they've actually spray painted green i'm going to find some of that chinese green you paint, and I'm sure it's on Amazon.

Yes, actually. Rife with peculiar silted English. How close are you to your first cold snap? When will the first frost hit? I don't know. A month away. Right now, we've had the most clement and lovely. It's just been absolutely perfect.

Late, lower 80s. I sit out at night with a dog in the gazebo and listen to the crickets and plop for the water fountain. And hear the planes go overhead. And it's like eternal summer until you catch out of the corner of your eye that one fatal taint of a leaf that's decided to go first. But so far, right now, it's all perfect. And believe it. Like that. And not ruin it.

This is the end. Thank you, Donors Trust. Thank you, Quip. Give us those five stars. Join Ricochet. And we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 4.0 next week. Next week, James. Ricochet.

Join the conversation.