The Ricochet Podcast - The Last Straw

Episode Date: July 20, 2018

This week, some rumination on Trump’s tete a tete with Putin (along with a history lesson for Rob Long), we introduce you to Elizabeth Heng, who is running for Congress in California’s 16th District, we get some #MeToo education from our good pal Mona Charen, (stop whatever you’re doing and buy her book Sex Matters right now) and the city of Santa Barbara declares that if you use a straw in that... Source

We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word would instead of wouldn't. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lilex.

Today we talk to California congressional candidate Elizabeth Heng and our own Mona Charron about her new book, Sex Matters. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye. Welcome, everybody, to the Ricochet Podcast. It's brought to you by the fine people at Casper. You can get $50 off a select mattress by visiting casper.com slash ricochet and using the promo code, oh, anybody's guess? Right, ricochet at your checkout.

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simple. Make sure all of your basics and beyond are smartly designed and that shopping for them is easy and convenient. For $20 off your first order, you can visit MackWeldon.com and enter the promo code RICOSHET at your checkout. And you know, at this point, long-time listeners of the podcast, I mean people who have been here through 407 episodes

and are eagerly awaiting 408, think this is the spot where Rob comes in and spontaneously crafts his own pitch for people to open up their wallets and join Ricochet. 407 times he's done this, the poor man. If only somebody could write him a script that he could read, relieving him of the burden of spontaneously generating the copy. Rob, are you there? I'm here, and I do have the copy written by our own Max Ledoux,

director of technical operations, which sounds really kind of fancy. He has written this member pitch for me, and I think it's actually pretty good except for one part, which I think everyone's going to see through. So here at Ricochet.com, we've always tried to fill a need that we saw on the right for something, news analysis, intellectual discussion, soothing voices, whatever, along the lines of what NPR does for the left. Just like NPR is free to listen to over the airwaves,

Ricochet Audio Network Programming is free to listen to over at ricochet.com or iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play or any podcast app you might want to use. However, unlike NPR, we don't get any federal funding, and of course, we wouldn't take any even if they offered. Actually, I'm just kidding. I would take a billion dollars from President Trump, and I would tell him how great I think he is. That's just how low I will sink, just how much I care about Ricochet.

But, of course, that's probably not going to work. So we do have expenses. We do have a payroll. It takes money to run the best conservative center-right podcast network on the planet. So if you're somebody who is a member of Ricochet.com already, we thank you. And we ask that you try out some of our sponsors' products. Let them know you came from us. He actually wants me to say this. But don't this part emphasis i care trump is the greatest president wait a minute i'm gonna have to talk to max about that later yeah he so he's already

written this in for me look the important part is i'm gonna now i'm freelancing use the coupon codes uh when you uh go to our advertisers these are great products we all use them and um that will also help us out but if you are that's if you're a member. But if you're not a member, and I know a lot of you aren't a member, and I know a lot of people aren't members, and they think to themselves, I'm going to be a member. Look, there are some people who aren't members and are like, I'm never going to join that damn thing. But there are some people who have been meaning to do it, and it is important that you do it today. So please become a podcast listener member at Ricochet.com. Join for just $2.50 a month. It's a way for

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podcast at Ricochet Audio Network by becoming a sponsoring member at Ricochet. That's just $2.50 a month. That's really nothing. And it will mean the world to us. So if you're thinking about doing it, you've been putting it off,

pause the show right now. Go to ricochet.com slash join and please join us so you can listen to the next, you know, 45, 50, 60 minutes of programming as a member. And we will thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Yes, do pause because we will be issuing subliminal clues to make you join at the highest possible member level. So Coolidge Thatcher, Coolidge Thatcher. Peter, Peter Robinson, how are you today i'm i'm

i'm a little worn out from uh from the news of this week but uh it's first time actually since this man took office that i've just had about enough aside from that however i'm fine thank you james how are you well it's the aqua 10 meal here in minneapolis uh which is this festival that we have to celebrate water and our excessive amounts of it. I was going back at some old newspapers, as is my wont, to look at Aquatennial coverage of previous years. Wait, just, can I, Aquatennial? Yes, the Aquatennial. As in a centennial, as in a bicentennial, Aquatennial.

It was created to be the Minneapolis warm weather equivalent of the Winter Carnival, which St. Paul has to celebrate the frigid temperatures. Yeah, so the Winter Carnival you guys have from September to April, right? That's the longest-running carnival. Yeah, pretty much. And the Winter Carnival for years was and still is. They have these guys, the Vulcans, who run around, their faces are obscured, and they commit random acts of mischief. They're sort of the Antifa, except a very happy version of it. In the old days, they would smudge the unwilling's faces with soot, daubing them so to

show that they'd been part of the whole fun, but of course that led to problems and they don't daub very much anymore. So in order to match the Vulcans, who were a great part of the Winter Carnival, Minneapolis came up with the Aqua Jesters, which were clowns. And you would have doctors and pharmacists and lawyers and regular folk around town.

Sounds awful. They would dress up as clowns and they would go around and commit merriment and mayhem. Well, I found a 1950s illustration from the Sunday paper talking about the clowns and it says aqua jesters. They put the old sphyserinctum

into the aquatennial. I've never seen this word before in my life. Sphyserinctum. It's got sphincter in there, it's got pizzazz, it's got everything. And I just have the feeling, like Peter, after the last week, that Donald Trump puts the old sphincter into the news cycle. reacting in a couple of ways when there is a hair on fire immediate nuclear escalation to something that the president said I usually figure well he did something it may have been not the smartest thing in the world but it may not be as horrible as the rest of these people are talking about and then when

you hear what he said was the equivalent of Kristallnacht and 9-11 and Pearl Harbor you think yeah absolutely, absolutely, they're going crazy again. But I fear that I'm losing my ability, actually, to look at something and say, okay, now hold on, I'm looking at this from a perspective of somebody who's skeptical of everybody, but is this a different level of, oh my God, oh my God, oh my my god is this a different level of something that i really should be concerned about peter you mentioned that you were exhausted again yeah it's a different level this month at least so okay i have to take a moment or two to answer

this and then rob can we can talk turn it toss it over to rob and rob can add this fizzer thank you very much rob can add this fizzering to sphyser ringtum. Thank you very much. Rob can add the sphyser ringtum to this segment. Actually, I can't. I had my sphyser ringtum removed. A lot of people thought you had it sewed up, but go on.

Oh, oh, oh. All right. So my first response was to react to the reaction, right? Donald Trump, you make a couple of one makes a couple of points. First of all, we don't know that people were not responding to any change in American policy to any agreements that were made at this Helsinki summit. We don't know whether any agreements were made so far. The administration has not suggested any change in policy. The sanctions remain on Russia on and on and on. What Donald Trump did was blow a news conference about a 20 minute news conference. And then you can go back. That's point one.

It was just a news conference. And point two is you can go back in history and you can point out that in 1948, Harry Truman said, old Joe is a prisoner of the Politburo. He wants to be a good guy, but the Politburo won't let him, which was ridiculous. And Truman had to have known it was ridiculous. Even then, you can go to the presidential debate between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford in which Gerald Ford, for some inexplicable reason, well, it's explicable. He seems to have been trying to say that the proud peoples of Eastern Europe still in their

own minds were independent nations. But he said and was questioned on it and dug in even deeper that Eastern Europe was not dominated by the Soviet Union. You can even go way, way back to 1945 when winston churchill praised the soviet union in the house of commons after the yalta conference and refused to engage in any questioning of russian goodwill all of that you can do and all of that i sort of did because i was reacting to the reaction the idea that this was defcon 4 that it was a cataclysm that is john mccain said in his statement i don't I thought he was

too ill to write a statement, whether we should attribute to him or to us, I don't know. But in his statement that Donald Trump was the worst flattery of a tyrant that any president had ever engaged, that is historically ignorant. It wasn't. At the same time, it was really stupid. It was really ignorant. It demonstrated that Trump's – and whereas I have been arguing on this podcast again and again that Trump's underlying instincts are reasonable. He's got a lot right. He may not articulate it well. He may overreach. He may be unaware of the policy details required to put some instinct into effect.

Here, he said something that was foolish, that demonstrated ineptitude and ignorance, and on which his instincts were just all wrong. So I now hand you over to Rob Long, who will give Donald Trump the defense that I didn't. Yeah, not going to happen. And I think give Donald Trump the defense that I didn't. Yeah, not going to happen. And I think you're wrong. I think you're wrong on a bunch of cases. I don't think there's any connection between what he said and what Truman said or Churchill said or Gerald Ford said. What they were saying were flattering lies maybe or diplomatic niceties or overtures in the service of peace or the nation's interest

donald trump blew that press conference because he will ignore the truth because it doesn't suit his interests we saw him put himself and his vanity ahead of the national interest that's what we saw and that's what a malignant narcissist does. He cannot accept that there was Russian meddling in the election. I mean, look how easy it would be for him to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, they messed up some Facebook news feeds. They got a algorithm. Does anybody really think that Hillary would have won? Really? Like, you didn't even go to Wisconsin. Come on. I mean, that's all he has to say. That is what a mature, emotionally and mentally stable person would say. He can't say that because he can't undermine his own vanity and self-love. It is him first. That's what we saw. intersect with the national interest but when they don't he throws the country off the boat and that's what we saw that is the president that we elected that is the president a lot of people still support but make no mistake he is emotionally and mentally unstable and that's what we saw

and sometimes that's fun and funny and he owns owns the libs. I get it. Right. But sometimes when he's standing up again with Putin, it's not so good. And I mean, at some point, we're all going to have to have a reckoning that there's a sick man in the White House. He is not mature. He is not well. He is not fit to be there. He is there. But let's not make excuses for him and compare him to statesmen who may have said a lot of different things. But we're always at always acting in the national interest. I think that's a mistake. This guy is nuts. We have time. Can I share one more little theory? I have that the reason why the press hates him so much is because – he hates the press so much. It's because they're the same.

I mean the press is exactly the same as Donald Trump. All they would have to do – all prominent reporters would have to do is say what we all conservatives know. It's like, yeah, you're right. We're liberal and we're biased. And when we go too far, you should call us out on it and we'll try to address it. That's all you have to say. Instead, whenever you call out a reporter and say, well, you should call us out on it, and we'll try to address it. That's all I have to say. Instead, whenever you call out a reporter and say, well, you're just liberal biased, well, you don't know how I vote. I'm registered independent, as if that's the issue.

Is there voter registration? They have that same narcissistic, malignant, toxic self-love, the same kind of me first and only me attitude that Donald Trump has. He's like – I was talking to Blue Yeti last night, and I thought – did you ever see that show Max Headroom? Yeah, of course. Max Headroom was this creation of the media, right? And he lived inside the box. That's what Donald Trump is. He's President Max Headroom. And everybody – all the press, they created him, and they're just alike, and they're locked in this sort of horrible death spiral that we all have to watch and get exhausted by.

But make no mistake that Donald Trump is not making America great again. He's making – he cares about making Donald Trump great. That's a psychological reality that whether he appoints good Supreme Court justices and has a great tax cut plan and all sorts of good things, I'm cheering. But let's not – we're watching a very ill, unstable person be commander in chief. Well, there are some people who will shrug at all of the excesses and say, well, so he's a narcissistic personality who sees things with the prism of his own particular self-interest. How is that different from any other president? How is it different from Bill Clinton? That's a good question, actually.

No, but you could say that the difference is that Clinton and a lot – I mean because anybody who's going to get up to a certain level of politics has to have a certain – there is something a little bit wrong at the margins. I mean there are those who are truly, deeply interested and believe in public service, but there are those, and I suggest there's more than a few, who have a sense of entitlement and self-aggrandizement that leads them to think, I can do this for the nation. The thing is that Trump is more obvious about it, more open about it, more naked about it. Is your issue really, Rob, not so much that he is as malignantly narcissistic as, say, Bill Clinton, but that he's just really bad at hiding it and really bad at not being able to use the skill to advance something? Instead, we keep talking about how bad he is at this. I mean would you be happy if he was just as narcissistic but had better skills at uh at

hiding well yeah because hiding it means that you're going to you'll know instinctively that it's a when the push comes to shove you know instinctively that you you can shrug and say yeah they meddled they shouldn't have i yelled at him about it uh but they didn't change the election it's just sort of a dirty it's dirty pool I mean what you want in a president is at least the silhouette or the kabuki theater of being – of knowing what a well person and a stable person sounds like. He did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. And when later it turned out he did, how weird and freaked out people were. I mean I was. We watched that clip and think you're a psychopath, right? You're like how could you – he wasn't lying when he said that. He looked like he believed it, right?

It was weird. And we have lost that reaction. I don't think it's Trump's fault. I think it's sort of culturally that's the problem. But I think when the rubber meets the road, right, when the president of the United States meets the president of the Russian Federation or whatever it's called now, I mean that's when you need someone to at least know how to behave. I mean who knows what happened. The fact that we keep saying who knows what happened in that conversation? Who knows what happened in that conversation? Well, I can remember there was, I'm not

old enough to remember this, but historically there was a conversation between Khrushchev and Kennedy, in which Kennedy said to Khrushchev, because he was high on back pills, go ahead and put missiles in Cuba, because we're going to put missiles in Turkey. No, no,

no. No such conversation ever took place. in Cuba because we're going to put missiles in Turkey. No, no, no. No. No such conversation ever took place. Really? You're going to take me to case right on this? You would know. You're sort of onto something. We already had missiles in Turkey.

Eisenhower put the missiles in Turkey. And the way we backed out of the Cuban missile crisis was by secretly agreeing that if you chef removed his missiles from cuba we would remove the missiles from turkey but that i think what you're referring to is the vienna summit when kennedy waltzed in thinking that he could charm khrushchev and khrushchev just beat the crap out of him and kennedy appeared drained and had failed to his aides everybody all the memoirs

agree on this that Kennedy appeared shocked and drained and simply had never been up against somebody that strong somebody that thuggish before and Kennedy himself felt that he had failed terribly and demonstrated weakness and the argument goes that in some ways that may have been in the back of Kennedy's mind when he started toughening things up in Vietnam, assassination of Diem, American advisors who were actually fighting, so forth. You're on to something. and maybe disingenuous understanding on the part of the Russians that this was not going to be a problem because of the messages and the conversations that Kennedy had with Khrushchev. There's a question – according to my understanding, it's less than encyclopedic, but I have read a lot about it. There's a question about a conversation that the American ambassador had with Khrushchev, and that remains a historical. The ambassador never quite said what he said to Khrushchev. That remains, as far as I'm aware,

a mystery in the record right now. There is some speculation that the ambassador may have done a kind of hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, nudge, nudge,udge wink wink nudge nudge that the soviets interpreted as permission to go ahead with the wall that's i could i myself consider the balance of evidence against it but yes that's what that's what the speculation can say i don't like this conversation because i've been laboring under this i like my story better where kennedy blows it by sort of shrugging and allowing and and and not standing up to khrushchev when khrushchev says well you have well you have i got the order wrong your missiles in turkey i mean you know we put missiles in cuba and and he just kind of acquiesced which apparently not i could be wrong but it allowed for hours to transpire when the russians genuinely or maybe disingenuously pretended that they did

not understand the the the problem with the missiles in Cuba because, of course, they had been given a tacit green light by the American president. Well done. There were two cables. At the time itself, there were two cables. The cables came from Moscow. And the

first cable was astonishingly belligerent. And everyone in the West Wing, including the president himself, went white when they read it because they really felt they were about to face a war. And then a couple of hours later, before the Americans had figured out the diplomatic response they wanted to convey in their return cable, a second cable came through, and it was much more reasonable and much more open to compromise and the Americans had cruise ship and drunk the first time and Kennedy himself said we're just going to ignore the first cable

no response to the first cable we'll reply to the second more reasonable cable that may be the so there were two cables but they were from the Soviets I have the feeling I like my story better if this podcast had taken place if this podcast is a better movie i have the feeling that if this podcast had taken place during the cuban missile crisis you guys

would be discussing the schlieffen plan in world war one i mean we're going to put everybody to sleep james right well the point that i wanted to make and i have to make it very quickly because we have a guest to get to is simply this this. You mentioned that Bill Clinton said, I did not have relations to that woman, and it was a lie. The question is whether or not he knew it was a lie. I think he knew it was a lie when he said it, and he was perfectly capable of doing it. The question that we have with Donald Trump is whether or not he knows that a lot of the stuff he says is BS, that a lot of the stuff that he says simply isn't true, whether he knows it and doesn't care or whether he's become simply so mentally acclimated to saying what gets ratings at the moment or attention that it doesn't matter, that it doesn't care. But we can talk about that later. As a matter of fact, I'm sure that's what comment threads are for, right?

So everybody will probably – this week I did a couple of posts. The fun thing is to write a post, leave it at 1 o'clock in the morning, and then get up at 8 o'clock and find that there's 35, 40 comments and you can have at it, right? I love that. I love just dropping that thing out there and then going to bed. And the thing is I don't – Can you sleep well? I mean how are you supposed to toss and turn waiting to find out that – No, not at all. As a matter of fact, even if I had said something contentious that I thought might come back to bite me on social media, God forbid, it wouldn't bother me because there's just something so narcoleptically enfolding about the bed that I have that, yeah, I sleep well.

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Special offers at U2 can be this thrilled. $50 off select mattresses by visiting casper.com slash ricochet and using the promo code ricochet at your checkout. That's casper.com slash ricochet, promo code ricochet for $50 off select mattresses. Terms and conditions, of course, will apply. And our thanks to Casper for sponsoring this, slash Ricochet. Promo code Ricochet for $50 off select mattresses. Terms and conditions, of course, will apply. And our thanks to Casper for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome to the podcast Elizabeth Heng. She's running for Congress in California's 16th district, and that includes the Central Valley and Fresno.

She was raised in Fresno, student body president at Stanford, got an MBA from the Yale University School of Management. She's previously worked for the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and she's a conservative in California. Elizabeth, we were told that they were a dying breed, almost nonexistent, stuck in the tar pits, doomed to the ash heap of history. How did it happen that you got interested in politics, and why did you end up on the right side of things? Well, I saw firsthand how government regulations truly impact job creation for us here in California. And I saw that firsthand while after I graduated from Stanford, I actually came back to the Valley here in Fresno to work with my brothers to create jobs. And we opened up a number of cellular franchises here.

And this is when the financial crisis happened, the health care bill passed, and it was frustrating working in the retail business. I thought to myself, I was so fortunate to go to a good university. I was student body president when I was there, and I didn't know a single person in politics. So I wanted to go fight the good fight, went to Washington, D.C., to learn the legislative process to make life better for us here in California. Elizabeth, Peter Robinson here. Thanks so much for joining us. I am your fellow Californian.

And, wow, is it good to know that you exist. And if you win over here on the coast, I will pop a bottle of champagne for the Central Valley. All right. So what doesn't compute is Asian last name, Stanford undergraduate, Yale MBA. We have an Asian who went to fancy schools and who should therefore be a Democrat and a liberal here in California. And you're not. Now, you just told us that part of the reason for that is actual business experience. You found out what it's like to try to do business when the government is doing what it can to make it hard. What's the family background? How long has your family been in the Central Valley? How deep do your roots there go? So I am actually the daughter of

refugees. My grandparents are all Chinese. After World War II, they fled to Cambodia because there was no food in China. And then my parents were born in Cambodia and lived through the Khmer Rouge and came to the United States under Reagan as legal refugees and eventually came here to Fresno to create a business. They actually have an Asian grocery store in the heart of one of the toughest neighborhoods in Fresno, California, and has been with this business for over 25 years, serving the Southeast Asian community. Got it. And now, so you grew up with the feeling that your family had lost not one but two countries, and you grew up watching your parents build a business. Okay, I'm beginning – my wife is Cuban. I begin to get the feeling here that that's enough to make somebody think through politics pretty carefully.

Present day, I've got one more question. Then Rob Long, I know, wants to come in. You finished single digits behind the sitting rep, Jim Costa, sitting congressman, Jim Costa, who's a Democrat in the California primary, which means you get to face him in the – I won't go into this because the listeners who aren't in California don't care about it, and those of us who are in California find it so frustrating, this jungle primary. In any event, you're on the ballot, but it is astonishing, I think, that you finished within a single-digit number of points behind the incumbent. What are the polls showing? Can you really take this guy, or are you making a stand for the sake of making a stand? Is this a glorious lost cause, or can you win, Elizabeth? I can win. I mean, I received 47% of the total vote in this district. Election after election, we've seen voters come out and support Republican candidates in this district because it's time to truly elect someone who truly represents the ideals of the American dream and of the diversity of thought

and culture that really permeates throughout this district. This district is, you know, the Central Valley. There are small business owners and middle class American workers that live in these counties who have come from nothing and built a life or a business just like my family has. And sometimes it truly takes a fresh pair of eyes to really get the job done. I think voters want someone who's willing to fight for their interests, but also someone who can bring a new perspective and plan of action to secure our borders, create jobs, provide opportunities in schools, and finally restore the broken infrastructure that we have

that has been plaguing this economy for decades now. And I've been a fighter my whole life, and that's what I want to do for our valley here. And I think that message clearly is resonating with the constituents around here. Hey, Elizabeth, it's Rob Long. Thank you for joining us. I'm talking to you a little bit farther downstate in Los Angeles. The 16th District, it's heavily Hispanic. I'm running against you, say. I'm going to wrap Donald Trump and the border and family separation and all that around

your neck. That's what I'm going to do when I run against you. And I'm going to make you either repudiate him and spend all your time talking about the president, because I have a feeling that in a heavily Hispanic district, I'm going to be able to scare enough people into voting for me. How are you going to fight that? As the daughter of refugees, I understand the importance of having an immigration policy that works for our country. This is personal for me. For far too long, both Republicans and Democrats have punted this topic.

When we even talk about areas such as DACA recipients, for example, the last president deferred action to provide the security that these recipients need. But at the same time, we need to fix areas such as H-1B visas for our tech companies, guest worker programs for our farmers. There needs to be a significant increase. But this all needs to be tied back to border and national security. Immigration in our country is broken. And clearly, there's a lot of hostility that's going on around the country right now in talking about this topic. can agree, when we saw families being separated, those pictures, they were heartbreaking. But this all goes, you know, we need to make sure that these children are safe, but we need to make sure that they're not being trafficked, for example, at our borders. But once we figure that out, we need to put families back together. But this goes on to a broader discussion on broader border and national security tied to immigration. So what is

the best way going forward as we deal with asylum seekers seeking refuge, refugee in the United States, but at the same time, you know, how is it a fair process? Having discussion about how this is a fair process with people who are trying to become going through the immigration, the legal immigration process to becoming American citizens. So if there's anything I'm happy about, we're having this discussion in our country right now. And I am hopeful that we can finally come together as adults in Washington, D.C., and to make the change that we so desperately need. Okay.

Hey, by the way, that's a great answer. I really – I think that's a really good answer. But I'm going to run against you, and I'm going to say, yeah, no, it's just those words. You're going to vote with Trump. You're going to keep what's happening on the border happening on the border. You're a Trump Republican, and if I vote for you, nobody vote for you because you're against Hispanics. That's what they're going to say. I guarantee you there's a FedEx Kinko's right now printing out that handbill and that door knocker for your district.

What do you say about that one specific thing, about the Trump, wrapping Trump around your neck? How are you going to thread that needle? You know, I support the president. If you look at our economy, right, if you look at the policies and you look at our economy, it is undeniable that our economy is at an all-time high. Our unemployment is at an all-time low. But if you look at, you know, the Central Valley specifically here, although the unemployment is significantly higher than what it is in the rest of the country, it is undeniable we are better off now with job creation here in our valley and in our country than we were two years ago. And, you know, I am my own woman. I will agree with the president

when I do, and I won't where I won't but I think that's the beauty of having a separation of government and having individuals that and I'm willing to sort of fight for the causes of our economy right now when I see I think so many of us are sick

and tired of watching all the chatter that's going on when we're watching the news. Because when I'm walking around, knocking on doors, talking to constituents, they're talking about the areas of job creation for us here in the Valley and education. The incumbent that I am running against has been in office for 40 years. He's been a member of Congress for 14 years. If, in fact, he had a vision for our community, I feel like we would have seen it by now. And when

we are the 412th, one of the poorest congressional districts out of 435 in the country, I truly feel like we can do better. When we have nine in 10 people who have a high school or below degree. We can do better in this community. And I want to fight the good fight to make the community in which made me become the woman I am today like a better place. Love it. Love that answer. Let's start with the 40 years part. Go ahead. I'll take the devil's advocate baton from rob

thank you and say that uh well the progressives will tell you that the reason that the economy is doing so great is that california is such a progressive state and that's why everybody wants to move there and everything's fantastic but at the same time the same people will tell you that the tech boom that they credit california with with having started also leads to massive income disparity in these cities and that something has to be done about that. Now, you live in a one-party state, which means that it's not going to moderate itself. It's going to keep moving naturally toward the extremes of its political ideas. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over on the other side of the country has shown that there's

a great appetite among the Democrats for somebody who comes up with that fresh, new, wonderful democratic socialism that's just going to make everything better. As you see the left and the Democratic Party in California moving to the left, how do you craft a narrative exactly that says that the end result of what these people want is the ruination of the state? Does that fall on deaf ears because people look around and say, well, things look nice, the weather's great, that's apocalyptic? How do you get across to them that the is excited for the economy doing a lot better than we have in previous years. to move forward for our country and our communities here, just because the regulations that are coming out of, you know, California, especially from Sacramento, is suffocating to businesses and to be able to really thrive.

And it hits harder for us here in the Valley, in particular, as we want to increase the opportunities for the individuals that are here. And so I'm going to be focused on really fiscal responsibility and ensuring that we have more common sense legislation as we sort of move forward. I mean, one big topic for us here is water. For our farmers and our ag community. And consistently, the policies that come out of Sacramento, our state capital, and Washington, D.C. is not good for what I would say is the bloodline of our community here. And so I want to fight for that. And I think that is important.

Elizabeth, this is Peter here. One more time. You've got to go campaign and we promised we wouldn't keep you too terribly long, but A, wow, it's just wonderful talking to you. B, remind me never to cross you because you sound pretty tough. And C, please tell us, repeat it, say it at least twice, and say it slowly enough so people can make notes, mental notes of it. What's your website? A lot of our listeners are going to want to learn more about you. What's your website? Where should they go? They should go to elizabethhang.com. And how you spell my last name is H-E-N-G. So Elizabeth H-E-N-G dot com. Thank you.

There you have it. And good luck. There you go, folks. Not to mention Twitter, of course. Twitter at the same, at Elizabeth Heng, H-E-N-G. Hey, thanks a lot. Good luck. Good luck.

We hope to talk to you after the election and be referring to you by your new title of winner. Yeah, the honor. Thank you, everybody. Bye-bye. The difficulty of running in California as a conservative is just astonishing. But when you have somebody who's got the mental acumen and the you know the the obvious verbal ability to challenge them i mean don't you want to see her up against sort of a standard issue uh you know new or old style progressive who's got nothing but bromides in the same terms that

we've been hearing before and before don't you want to just sit back and make yourself some popcorn and watch that debate happen oh but then i hate eating popcorn james what's that what's that i hate eating popcorn you hate popcorn why well you know why i'll tell you why because the little kernels get in my teeth and i know and it's and then it's literally no way efficient way anyway and reliable way to to deal with that uh nettlesome problem so i live a life a popcornless life in a way. A joyless life, you could say. It's not the popcorn kernel that gets in your gums, though. It's the hull, right?

Isn't it the popcorn hull? I mean, I think that's part of the kernel. That would be part of the kernel. Exactly so. Boy, I, frankly, Rob, am impressed, because you really did see that one coming. And you did. I did.

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It has a really – I totally agree. I thought I was the only one. Well, that's two of us. And that'll be thousands of you if you go to getquip.com slash ricochet right now. And our thanks to Quip for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. And now we welcome back to the podcast Mona Charan. Yay! Syndicated columnist,

CPAC speaker, beloved Ricochet podcaster, and author of a new book, Sex Matters. Mona, if I can take from the praises prices of your book you may say that the solution to boorish male behavior and of course i am exempt from that my entire life has been blameless uh thank you the solution is uh not more feminism but less feminism tell us what you mean by that yeah um well thanks for having me on first of all great to talk to you guys um so this book is a um re-examination of some of the premises that feminism was based on um the idea that men and women are exactly the same and that all the differences that we notice in society are the result of socialization that is socially constructed as they would have it on

the college campuses. So, I mean, I went back and read all these people. I'd saved you the trouble, just so you know. You don't have to go back and read, you know, Gloria Steinem and, you know, Germaine Greer and Betty Friedan. I did all that for you. And it's amazing to go back now and look at it, both because they were so nuts, but also because so many of the things they believed have now become pieties, you know, that we can remake society completely. We don't have to respect nature or any limits whatsoever. We can just sort of decide that the world ought to be androgynous and just make it so. Hey, Mona, Peter here, Peter Robinson. I would like to do a two-part testimonial to you, Mona Charon, whom I've known for a long, long time.

Now that I'm the father of a daughter in her 20s and a daughter in her teens, I understand that the world is complicated in ways for women, that it is not complicated in ways for men. And I understand better than I ever have what an astonishing act Mona Charon is. Wife, mom, thorough professional, thorough professional, tough as nails, charming as can be. I just hold up Mona to all of you who have daughters, all listeners who have daughters, as somebody your daughters ought to get to know. And starting with this book, Sex Matters, might not be a bad thing. The other point I want to make is that Mona can really write. And she writes in such an easy, accessible style that people – I don't think people say, oh, Faulkner could write because it's obvious. There are no fireworks in your prose, but that's the hardest kind of prose to write, as Rob Long and James Lilacs both know.

Accessible, easy, engaging prose. Okay. Wow. Can we hang up now? Yeah, let's stop. No, no, no. I just – I've loved you always, but I think more of you all the time. Okay, so now on to the – I have not read the book, but because I so respect you and because I so love your prose, I certainly will.

Question. You and I are pretty much during the 80s, which is when you and I got to know each other, the feeling that the restoration of the Reagan years was not just economic. It wasn't just that we were making progress in foreign policy. It was that somehow or other the culture was coming back to its senses. And now things are much worse in all kinds of ways than they were then. Are you surprised? What the heck happened? And are we fighting for a restoration of the culture?

Or do we simply need to give up and say, we're just trying to hold together a little remnant? So that is a huge, huge question. And first of all, thank you for all the wonderful things you said. I really appreciate it. And you know, I'm a huge Peter fan and always have been, always will be. So, but regarding what was happening in the 80s, I do agree with you. There was a sense maybe it was a little bit of wishful thinking on our part that there was a cultural as well as a political realignment. And perhaps there was somewhat, but it has certainly gone off kilter since then.

And, you know, when I say this, I'm really not talking about gay marriage or things like that. I'm really talking about the relations between men and women. And here's one of the things I've noticed. I have a whole chapter on the campus rape situation and my interpretation of all that, which is tied in with hookup culture and so forth. But one of the things that I'm at pains to say is that conservatives and people on the right have gotten themselves into a trap where they now, because they know that the things the left is saying are ridiculous, right, that one in five women is not raped. And, you know, the left, of course, has gone overboard in describing the problem. And of course, the left says it's toxic masculinity and so forth. And I talk about that too in the

book. But what the right has found itself doing is saying, ah, these women, you know, they're making it all up. There's no problem. You know, everything's fine. It's just these women who are whining and complaining and being neo-Victorians and so on. I think that conservatives need to rediscover that they are gentlemen, that they want to be gentlemen. They want to be kind to women. They want to teach men that their responsibility as the stronger sex is to use that strength to protect the smaller and weaker, not to abuse, not to take advantage. And I see much less of that now on the right than one saw in years past and then one would like to see. Mona, you mentioned you've gone back to the original feminist philosophers.

And I think at the time, there was probably this sort of general notion that what they meant was that there was a tremendous waste of human potential. All of these women who are trapped in Levittown or New Haven or the like, when they should be realizing what they could be out in the world. And that idea sort of formed the idea of feminism. It's just equality for women. But what people missed was how this morphed into Catherine McKinnon and Andrea Dworkin and the rest of them who came up with these crazy deconstructionist notions of sex and gender and started a wave of feminism that believed that we

live in a heterosexual patriarchy and that we have to destroy and demolish down to the atomic level every one of the structures that we had before. Now we find ourselves in a position where transgenderism has sprung out of this and is at open war with a certain kind of feminism because they are redefining what it means to be a woman and invading female-only spaces, as the feminists say, as the trans-excluding radical feminists say. This, to me, is one of the most fascinating parts of modern sexual politics, and it seems to be playing out on the margins. But it's going to get more attention, isn't it? Because this is something that actually could crack into the modern feminist facade of unity.

Well, you know, at a moment like this, there are, you know, the worst angels of my nature just want to, you know, get some popcorn and watch, you know, as they're fighting about these things. And equipped. And I do have a section in Sex Matters where I talk about the fate of women's colleges and how, you know, women's colleges are now being forced to grapple with, well, what is a woman? And they are not quite so sure. You know, is it a trans woman? Is that a woman? Can a trans woman get into Smith or, you know, Mount Holyoke?

And so in any event, it has become quite the mess. But as you say, these things don't stay on the margins as long as they used to. They gallop to the middle of our lives with seemingly lightning speed. So, for example, the transgender thing has now become sort of mainstreamed. It's certainly part of the curriculum at the Fairfax County schools where my kids went. And, you know, the students are taught in sex ed class that people's sexuality is a spectrum and that your birth gender is not necessarily your gender identity and that it's assigned at birth and blah, blah, blah.

So, you know, it's amazing how fast these things happen. And what I have done in this book is I've shown how all of this actually originates with the feminists of the 70s and 60s that everybody always wants to say we're so reasonable. You know, oh, they just wanted to pay for equal work and so on. But you know what? When you go back and read them, it's not true. The seeds of our current confusion were planted then. They were completely disconnected from reality in some respects. You know, they believed for one of them, Shulamith Firestone, for example, didn't think that women would ever be truly free until all babies were grown in test tubes and women were freed from the

obligation to give birth and nurture children. And this was a big bestseller in 1970. And most of the original feminists, leaving aside Betty Friedan, who's a special case, most original second wave feminists really did believe in smashing the family, smashing marriage, smashing all sex roles of any kind. Hey, Mona, it's Rob Long. Thank you for joining us. And I guess I should say ditto to Peter. He kind of went a little nuts up front, so I can't say anything. I don't know what else to say about you.

You can heal the sick. How about that? Okay. All that's great. I was at a lunch not that long ago with a lot of people in the food business and chefs. And there was a very, very accomplished, very smart female chef. She's run a very prominent restaurant in Miami, very well-known chef. She mentored a bunch of other female chefs.

There's another younger – one of her younger protégés was there now as a restaurant somewhere else in Florida. And we're sitting around the table and I said, so what about all this Me Too stuff? And they both rolled their eyes. One of them is roughly my age and one of them is much younger and they kind of rolled their eyes the the uh one of them is about you know roughly my age one of them is much younger and they kind of rolled their yeah you know yeah and then finally the older uh woman said you know what i say suck it up that's what i say i know i'm not supposed to say it that's why i'm not telling you who she is i'm yeah i'm not saying it but suck it up like she tells us she told this harrowing story of when she was a young

chef uh and in in a very very well-known restaurant in washington dc run by a very very famous french chef um who was a total lech one step you know not quite at the rapey level but you know every day was a struggle. Yeah. And she said it was miserable and she hated him and she hated it, but he made it, he made her, he toughened her up. And then when she had to run her own restaurant, uh, she was, um, she had all those. So I don't know. What, what do you, so what would you say to a young woman's just starting out in business or just

starting out in some kind of job? Um, now it seems like the culture is saying, Oh, just go to the cops or go to your lawyer, you know, but what do you say about the real world, the real workplace? Yeah. Look, as Peter was saying earlier, you know, about what do you say to your daughters? The world is a little bit more complicated place to navigate when you're a female, because there has always been bad male behavior and women have always had to cope with it. The difference now, I think, is that we are also

living in an unbuckled, unbuttoned culture where there's no sense that anybody ever has to control themselves and they go home and consume huge amounts of pornography and get new ideas for how to misbehave the next day. I mean, I don't know where Harvey Weinstein got the idea that, you know, masturbating into a potted plant was a real turn on for the woman he was with. But, you know, look, there are certain there are certain professions where I gather the sexual harassment and bad behavior is just considered more normal than others. So one of them is one of them is the is the realm of cooking and chefs. I mean, they're notorious for for being jerks. And and in all ways, not only do they sexually harass the women around them, but they're cruel and nasty to the men around them, too. By the way, in the research for this book, I came across some interesting data about why there aren't more women chefs, leaving aside that whole atmospherics thing, which is probably one reason.

But there's another reason, which is that the hours that you have to work, if you're going to be a major chef, go right through the hours where you would, if you were a mother, you'd want to be home having dinner with your kids, giving them their baths, which you can't do if you're a chef. So people say, oh, it's sexism. Well, maybe it's not entirely sexism. It's choices that people make for themselves. So in general, back to Me Too, I am generally well disposed toward the Me Too movement. I think it's great that women are finding their voices and speaking up about this sort of thing

with the obvious caveat that you have to make elementary distinctions between a grope or an unwanted pass and rape. And so that's really important to make those distinctions. But I do think it's good that women are speaking up. And I'll go even further. I do think you could make a case that the Me Too movement is in a way,

not self-consciously, but in effect, a kind of a backlash against the whole sexual revolution. That people are saying, you know what, we are really just tired of this. You know, like, stop it.

You know, behave yourselves, you know. Hey, can I ask you a question? Yeah. You know, you've been in the working world a long time in a lot of opposite situations, a lot of like, you know, in politics. That's pretty, that could be pretty, let's say, chef-y, kitchen-y-like. You ever have to deal with this? Or do you ever think, as I think some women sort of our generation do sometimes, think back on something and think, you know, that was terrible. I shouldn't have had to put up with that, but I did. Yeah.

Is there anybody, I mean, I am not asking you to name the names, but is there anybody right now that is around and you could go to and you just want to punch in the nose? No, actually, the person who who deserved the punch in the nose, maybe I actually had an opportunity to get back at. But I'll tell you, that sounds like at least a novella right there. All right. So I'm happy to tell you. So when I was in college, by the way, like almost every woman has a story, right? I mean, it's very rare to find somebody to say, oh, no, no, that just never happened. When I was in college, I had this professor,

a famous Columbia University professor, who, you know, I thought really liked me. And, you know, he invited me to be in his elite seminar after I had been in this one course. And I thought, ah, that's great. And then he said, you know, he was going to give me a summer job. He was going to hire me over the summer to write a book for children with him. And we were going to be co-authors. And I was so excited. I was, you know, what was I, 21 or something, 20, 21.

And so I didn't make any other plans for my summer job and it was a big deal to get a summer job that was important you know and um and then the we were into the spring or probably into june and um he took me out for dinner to talk about the project and basically basically, by the way, this sexual harassment was so polite compared to what we have now. But he basically laid it on the line and said that, you know, he thought this was going to be the start of a really beautiful relationship and that, you know, he had feelings for me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that it was he made it very clear that part of the job was going to be sleeping with him. And I said, Well, you know, I really respect you. And I look up to you and blah, blah, you know, but but I don't have those same feelings. And the next day, I didn't have the job. So, so that was sexual harassment. I mean, in the classic sense. Yeah, it was classic, but it was so polite. I mean,

there were no, he didn't like, he didn't rub his penis against my shoulder the way Mark Halperin did to a woman in his office at CBS. And, and there was no masturbating in front of me. I mean, you know, it was like compared to now it was unbelievably Victorian. That's a very conservative uh story i heard i heard about a hollywood producer who's such a phony he did it into a plastic potted plant but you're right you're right when you said before that it's it's a result of the sexual revolution in the 60s all the chocks were off and this is a great era of liberation that was about to come and as it turned out it just empowered all the guys inner mansons and made the women made the women feel as if they're somehow behind the times if they didn't do it with everybody who did because, hey, free love, et cetera.

But now it seems if you try to make the argument that we should go back to what preceded it, everyone is going to hear that as an argument for returning to restrictive sex roles and a repressive sex negative time when Elvis Presley couldn't be shown above the waist. The only argument it seems people can make now is that the only solution is to detoxify masculinity, change men, disempower them, and once that's done, then we'll have nirvana. But that's not possible. So what argument can you make to people to say that pre-sexual revolution, the standards of decency and decorum actually had something that can still apply to today? How do you tell young people that? Right. Well, first of all, the sexual revolution did deny to women some of the sexual power that they once held, right? Because women used to be the gatekeepers. They used to be the

ones who decided just how far along sexual relationships would go. And there was no expectation on the part of men that sex was free and easy and that they didn't have to work for it. Let's put it that way. But look, in another section of my book where I talk about the huge inequality that is evolving in our society because of marriage patterns, I think I have an answer to this argument where people say, well, aren't you just wanting to turn back the clock to the 50s and everybody knows that's not possible and nor desirable. And I point out that if you look at the behavior of people in the upper third of our society, that is those who attend college or graduate school, so on, you look at their behavior, it is almost indistinguishable from the way people behaved in general in our society in the 1950s, right? They have very few sexual partners. They get married and they finish their education. They get a job. Then they get married. They tend to stay married. The divorce is much more among the lesser educated. And they never have children, almost never, have children

outside of marriage. Now, they are doctors and lawyers and accountants and business executives and so on. And are they living deprived and repressed lives? I don't think so. So you don't have to say that it's going to involve some, you know, sort of handmaid's tale world if people follow those simple guidelines. So, Mona, Peter, your last question, because you've got to go get started on your next book. The book, again, is Sex Matters. The author is our friend, Mona Charon.

You, again, I haven't read the book yet. I certainly will. But if so, the book takes pains to show that the early feminists planted the seeds that have now driven us all crazy. It's all there from the get-go. Therefore, for sure, we have to reject some very large component of the early feminist thought. Got that. Also got it that the top third of society gets married, stays married, and that's how they become doctors and lawyers and so forth um what is it this david brooks produced a statistic at some point that i found so amazing that i looked it up and he was right of course uh divorce rate about 50 percent

divorce rate among families that send their kids to ivy schools 10 that's right 10 okay so the you there's a utilitarian argument implicit here if you want to do well in the world behave yourself according to more traditional rules have but can you where where is the intellectual grounding can you do you take any do you spend any time in the book going to the Jewish tradition, to traditional? Where do you get the spiritual, the intellectual grounding that says, lead your life this way? Not only will you do well overall or better overall, but it's the better way to lead your life. It's more enriching. It's more ennobling.

Do you get to that? Well, I do. Yes. And I do talk a lot about what our natures are and being true to them because we exhaust ourselves in our society trying to overpower or transcend nature. And I think we find our best happiness when we're at peace with it and comfortable with it. And the fact is there are certain contours of every life. So we're born, we're born into families, communities, we age, we reproduce, we die. Those things are not negotiable. And just like that, we're male and female, and women have certain needs and desires.

One of the needs that is not being fulfilled in our time is for security, for obvious reasons, because we're the ones who get pregnant and need protection and give birth and so on. But we also have a strong desire to nurture. And I talk a lot about the differences between men and women, the fact that we don't need to be afraid of them. The feminists are so afraid to discuss it because they're terrified that somebody will conclude that women are inferior to men because they're different. And I say don't worry about those people. They're wrong, and it's not important. The fact is, it is it is important to be aware of our natures, and not at war with them, both men and women, and then to be aware that men and women cannot thrive at war with one another, we can only thrive best when we are in loving and caring relationships with one another and supporting one another. And so I'm very much opposed to the feminist tendency to measure the progress of the sexes against one another. undergraduates are now women well yeah but that's not good if the men are falling behind

who are those women going to marry and what does it say about our society if we are not doing right by our men and and they're not making it to college that's worrisome so thank you great points and you're going to find them scattered all over mona's new book sex matters we. We advise everybody to buy it, read it, and discuss it here in Ricochet. And, Mona, I wish we had more time because one of these days I'd like to sit you down and I'd really like to pick your mind about what you think about Donald Trump. I've been so shy about telling you. Because it's one of those great unknowables. And, you know, the coyness. Hey, we'll listen to you on the podcast with you and Jay and we thank you so much

for coming on this the ricochet podcast thank you thanks Mona bye you know and Rob will help me out here the difficulty that one arises to consider doing an underwear

commercial after having talked about sex for 20 minutes wow you interrupted my interruption because I was going to give you this long lead like Consider doing an underwear commercial after having talked about sex for 20 minutes or so. Wow. You interrupted my interruption because I was going to give you this long lead. I'm not saying – I'm not advocating that you should be doing these kinds of things, but if you are, you should at least have nice underwear. Well, I like the way that you're all of a sudden coming up so helpfully with all these things as though we're co-equals in this deal. I know. It's shocking. That's what amuses me.

Hey, that's all my friend. And I'm on the project too. Yeah. The guy who brings, the guy who brings coffee to the guy in the director's chair somehow thinks that he's a, you know, he's,

he's equal in stature. Did I ever tell you that? Did I ever tell you the story, the great story of a William Christopher who played a father Mulcahy on mash. Right. Actually the show was on many years. It's set in Korea.

And he – a medical unit in Korea. He played the chaplain and starred Alan Alda and people like that. And someone once asked him, William Christopher, what the show was about. And he said, it's about a guy who's a priest. The very – if you understand that, you understand Hollywood. I hope he was kidding, but I have the strange feeling that he wasn't. Well, anyway, we were talking about underwear, or at least we were going to talk about underwear. And I'm not just going to talk about underwear, though, because there's something else here of large significance that I have. Oh, I wish I had put it that way.

Start from the top. Mack Weldon, that's the company. They have a mission, and it's simple, to make sure that all of your basics and beyond are smartly designed and that shopping for them is easy and convenient. They started from scratch and engineered their very own fabric. That's a novel way of looking at it, isn't it? But they wanted to make sure the design process was meticulous so that you can count on the fit being the same every time. Now, the difference is in the detail. So they obsessed over every stitch and seam until they reached their definition of perfect. Mack Weldon believes in smart design, premium fabrics,

simple shopping, and I think you'll agree. It'll be the most comfortable underwear, socks, shirts, undershirts, hoodies, sweatpants, and more that you will ever wear because it's from Mack Weldon. It's just that simple. They've got a line of silver underwear and shirts that are naturally antimicrobial, which means that they eliminate odor. The underwear, socks, and shirts, they don't just look good. They perform well as two. So they're good for working out, for going to work, for going out. They just hold up fantastically during everyday life.

Quite simply, Mack Weldon is better than whatever you happen to be wearing right now. And they want you to be comfortable, so if you don't like your first pair, you can keep it. They'll still refund your money, no questions asked. Now, I have some of their foundation garments, as we say, and they are indeed the most comfortable things that I wear, but I also have a backpack that I got from their site, which is really cool. And I can't quite describe it, but there's something that puts a spring in a man's step when he realizes my backpack matches my

underwear. No one knows this, but I do. I'm standing taller for it. Anyway, that's what I got. It was easy to use the website. My size fit, and I'm a short guy who can never find anything that fits, and I found everything that I wanted to fit at Mack Weldon. Special offer so you can be as happy as we are

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Guys, before we go, there's a wonderful moment of virtue signaling that's taking place. And that is, various municipalities are saving the world one plastic straw at a time. Santa Barbara is the latest. They've authorized a $1,000

fine and jail time for violators. And I assume that serial violators, the restaurants who just willy-nilly without any care for the planet, hand out plastic straws. Peter, you're in the epicenter of this nonsense. Are you reconsidering your particular straw usage for the sake of the planet? Worm that I am, I went on Amazon and ordered 500 plastic straws. And I'm not even joking.

I never thought this would rise to the level of podcast material. But I – however, my children rebuked me. It's the new incandescent bulb. I actually – I have no – we live – I now – I am the person who can never, ever remember to open the trunk and get the little grocery carrier that my wife has stashed there out of the trunk. So I'm the one here in Palo Alto. There are no more plastic bags, and we have to pay $0.10, $0.15, something like that for a paper bag. I'm infuriated every time. So don't even get me started on plastic straws.

You know, this is the reverse of that famous thing when they came for the Catholics. I didn't say anything because I was a Catholic. When they come for the plastic straws, I didn't say anything because I don't use straws. I don't like straws. But back when they came for the incandescent bulbs, I said a lot and it didn't do any good.

So it does seem to me that I wish they had started with the straws because I don't care about the straws, but I do miss my incandescent bulbs. I like arguing the point because it forces the infinitesimal part of our waste stream, and that the United States' contributions to the world plastic overflow is quite small compared to the big countries that dump the stuff in their rivers. India, China, Malaysia, these guys are the ones who are responsible for the stuff that's floating around, and the fishermen who just dump their nets.

So the idea that people who are taking little tiny stirrer straws at Starbucks are contributing to this France-sized plastic island, it's BS. It's nonsense. And when you point out that the statistics that they got on how many straws are discarded were taken from some ninth graders' paper where it was essentially stats were extrapolated and made up,

they will say, and I've had this argument, none of that really matters. What counts is doing something, and even if it doesn't accomplish anything, the gesture itself is good too because it gets people thinking about these things so essentially you're saying you want to use the power of the state to forbid the usage of a commonplace item and to imprison and remove the property and freedom of people who do not adhere to the state's desire in order to make a general point about how people ought to behave that's what you want is that not applicable everywhere in your life to use the power of the state to modify behavior for the good of a general consciousness that has now improved? I not only agree with you, James, but I think that you said that with great

Spitz-a-winkiness. Say that word again, Rob. Spitz-a-winkiness. Spitzering. Spitzering. Spitzeringdom is what you mean. Spitzeringdom. You overflow. Yes, yes. I have the feeling that's going to be the name of podcast number 408, so we'd best get out right now.

Secret message coming up in just a minute, but first I have to tell you that the podcast was brought by who? By Casper, by Quip, by Mack Weldon. Support them for supporting us, and you'll get a great sleep, great toothbrush, and great foundation garments for men. You'll just be living better. If you enjoy the show, head on over to iTunes if you would. Your reviews will allow new listeners to discover us. It helps

keep the show going. And Rob, I think you would say that the more listeners we get, why that naturally translates to more money, right? Because people are just going to be- One would wish, if you've enjoyed this podcast, if you've been, I know I told you to stop the podcast. A lot of you probably didn't. And now you're wondering,

well, I got away with it one more time. Do it now. Please do it now. It really does matter. It is important to us. It's the only way we can grow. And then we would love to have you as members. And even if you don't want to, you know, you'll never go on the site.

You're never going to be that person. That's fine. I accept that. But please just go on just once. Ricochet.com slash join. Join at the podcast level. It's only $2.50 a month, and it will make a big, big, big difference to our continuing programming. And just remember, the only way that you can contribute

to the member feed, right, to add comment, I mean, you have to belong to Ricochet to make comments. So, for example, you know, I'm tempted to do shave and a haircut without adding two bits because people will be so frustrated. They'll want that two bits, and I'll say, I'm sorry,

I give the two bits in a member feed post. You're going to have to go there. So, some trick like that might work. But I will say that post. You're going to have to go there. So some trick like that might work. But I will say that the secret I was going to tell you, I'm going to hold that off for the member feed at some point and post that there. And people will just have to pony up that small amount. You used to say it's as much as a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but it's less than that now. And, of course, Starbucks will be raising their prices because they have to come up with paper straws, which destroy the earth because they cut down trees and the like. $2.50.

Cheap. Peter, Rob, thanks. It's been a lot of fun, and we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 3.0. Next week, boys. 3,000. Oh, baby. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

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