Leadership Lessons From The Great Books #64 – The U.S. Constitution, The King James Bible, and the Role of the Civil Magistrate w/Tom Libby

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Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode number

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64 with Tom Libby in three,

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two, one.

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Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells and this is the

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Leadership Lessons from the Great Books Podcast, episode number

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64 with my regular co host,

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now no longer semi regular, but regular co host Tom

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Libby. And welcome.

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Tom. How are you doing? I’m doing fantastic.

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If you’re not watching this on the video, it’s kind of hard to express, but

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I’m already kind of, like, laughing a little bit here because I just think today’s

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topic is going to we are either going to divide your

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audience dramatically between

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the haves and the rights and the wrongs and all this other stuff,

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or we’re just going to be very entertaining for them. I haven’t figured out which

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yet. We’re going to solve all the problems of the world in about the next

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hour and a half, which is about the only time we’ve got today. So

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we might not actually get to the end of the podcast today. We might actually

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have to put a to be continued on the end of this

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ellipsis and revisit some of the things in here

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because today we are going to talk about the intersections

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between the US Constitution,

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the King James Bible, Andrew

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Jackson, and the role of the civil

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magistrate in a republic. This

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is the kickoff to our month in July where we tend to focus

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on the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and

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what leaders can take from the founding documents of the United States,

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which I consider to be and which many consider to be. I’m

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not the only person here considered to be revolutionary documents

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in their time, but also consider them to be

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documents that have actually changed the nature of leadership,

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not just at a governmental level, but at

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a hierarchical level. In all manner of

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ways between leaders and followers

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has changed the nature of that relationship as

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truly fundamental founding documents do.

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So in the Bible there we’re going to get into it. We’re going to

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kind of talk about Proverbs 23 and 24.

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And like I said, we’re going to talk about the role of a civil

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magistrate and what that actually means. And this is weirdly

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enough, a podcast episode that is going to drop after

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episode number 65 where we talked about First Kings, Second Kings, First

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Chronicles, and Second Chronicles. Yes, we’re dropping them out of order. So I want you

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to go and listen to episode 65 and then get

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us in on episode 66 where we will be talking about or

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not 66, 67, where we will be talking about

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the US. Constitution more broadly beyond just the

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14th Amendment and the role of leadership with that. So we’re

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kind of bringing some things together here and we’re starting that with

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this podcast today.

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One of the things that we are going to really focus on, the narrow area

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that we’re going to focus on today in our conversation, and I’m going to quote

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directly from the US. Constitution in just a moment, we’re going to

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talk about how do you put caesar back in the box,

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because I do think that that is a fundamental question for our

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time. When leaders get out of control, when they behave

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somewhat I’m going to name a leader here that everybody knows. When they

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behave somewhat Napoleonically, how do you ship them

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off to elba, right? How do you make

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sure that they stay in their lane? A

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lot of the times on this podcast, we talk about leadership, self awareness, and how

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leaders need to understand who they are and the lane that they are

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in. But when a leader gets out of control, how do you put that

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leader in the box? Back in the box? And whose responsibility

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is it to do that? And there is no better example of

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the checks and balances that are placed on leaders, I think, in the

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world today than the contemporary

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and even the pre contemporary united States of

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America. And I quote directly

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from the US. Constitution, the 14th amendment,

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section one, which is really the only section you really

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mean. All persons born or naturalized in the United

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States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the

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United States and of the state wherein they reside.

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No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the

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privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall

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any state deprive any person of life, liberty,

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or property without due process of

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law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction

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the equal protection of the laws.

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Close quote from the US. Constitution, section

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one, 14th amendment.

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We are only a few days away from the celebration of independence

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day in the United States, the day that Thomas Jefferson, a noted

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deus, penned the famous words, we hold these truths to be self

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evident, that all men are created equal.

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Oddly enough, or maybe interestingly enough,

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four score and seven years later, on July

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4, at 1863, at a place called gettysburg,

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northern troops from Massachusetts, most notably, where tom Libby hails

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from, led by Joseph chamberlain, held

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the high ground at gettysburg and

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probably reserved the union.

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They and the southern troops who opposed them

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finally

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preserved in blood the argument that jefferson made

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in principle, and they did it

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in the mud of pennsylvania.

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It’s really hard when you think about the civil war to root for the, quote,

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unquote, bad guys. But I’m that guy.

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And that’s not to say I root for the south, and that’s

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not even to say that I root for the southern argument. The southern argument was

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full of holes, but

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secession acts of secession, acts of leaving

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right are radically enshrined in the declaration of independence

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as well. And we read from the 14th amendment. Well, the 14th amendment was

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specifically added to the constitution after the

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civil war because, quite frankly,

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african americans in this country. The descendants of African

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slaves were still underneath

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systems where they could be deprived of their life, their

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liberty, their property without due process of the law because they were

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believed to be less than.

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But let us not merely focus on race. There have been issues

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around this with class. There have been issues around

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this between men and women in our country. And of

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course, speaking of Andrew Jackson, there have been

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issues between those individuals who immigrated here and those

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individuals who really immigrated here.

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And so it’s hard to make an

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argument for the opposite side, right? It’s hard to make an

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argument for secession because in our time,

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the cause of the Southern troops today is merely labeled as treasonous and then placed

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in a box and forgotten or thrown away. And the

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arguments for Southern secession, the arguments that they made based on states

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rights are dismissed by the same people in our time.

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We even seek now to rename schools and monuments and

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tear down statues of the men who opposed the Northern troops in the Civil

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War. Matter of fact, in the town that I live in here in Texas,

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there is a statue of a general who was a battalion commander.

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The county is named after him, by the way.

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And he died at Gettysburg like a lot of

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Southerners did. And I don’t think he was fighting for

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slaves. Matter of fact, when you look into that guy’s history, he

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didn’t own one.

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When you think about that

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without emotion, which is really hard, there

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is no greater example in our country the Civil War

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is no greater example of how far average people must be willing to

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strive to check the power of the civil magistrate even if the civil

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magistrate is Abraham Lincoln. Right?

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And to try to put Caesar back in the box to try to

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try to contain leadership when it appears to be getting out of

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control. This is

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especially interesting in a country that ostensibly has a constitution and

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where Caesar serves a piece of paper in a

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republic rather than serving him or herself.

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We need raw, robust thinking in our time about these areas. And we

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need to drain some of the emotion from

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events that occurred over well over

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170 years ago. Knocking on the door of a hundred

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no, knocking on the door of 200 years ago pretty soon here.

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We need to be able to drain emotion from those events,

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but we can’t. And I think we can’t because

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we are struggling at a human level inside of this republic we have

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built. We are struggling with the

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idea of how to ensure life, liberty, property

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and due process of the law while also

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acknowledging the reality of a hierarchical

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structure and of leaders that have egos, leaders that have

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hubris, leaders that have arrogance and leaders that can sometimes get out of

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control. So

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with all of that being said, the sort of

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ground being laid there I already wound up Tom a little bit

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and told him where we’re going today.

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But let’s start off with that. Tom,

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does the enemy get a vote? Like, does the person

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opposing you, do they actually have a legitimate

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strain in their argument? Can we acknowledge that in our

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polarized culture today? Or are we all on the side

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of angels? And there are no demons. We’re all just on the side of angels

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together.

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So the first question you ask me is literally like a

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loaded gun here.

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Ready, fire. Aim. Right. Yeah.

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This is a really interesting topic for me. Right. And then

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I think it’s very interesting where you look at

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probably like the maybe early

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ninety s, right. When our political landscape was

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a bit different in the sense that

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you could live in a state like Massachusetts and being Republican and not worried

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about your house getting thrown eggs at every day. Right.

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Where today I know a lot of Republicans in the state of

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Massachusetts won’t even admit they’re Republican when they’re in mixed crowds.

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Just for those who don’t know if you don’t know, Massachusetts

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is an extremely liberal state. I mean, we’re probably

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one of the farthest left states that is in the country. Maybe us in

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California, I think, are probably the two.

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So for you to be for the. Population

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about 85%, to be that far

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left, you just don’t talk about it. If you’re a Republican, you just keep

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it to yourself and you vote and you go about it. Right. Because

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kind of kind of to your question about because

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we can’t seem to have a difference of opinion anymore.

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The idea of us disagreeing, shaking hands and walking

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away as friends is nonexistent today where it was when I was a

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kid, when the political landscape was a little bit

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I’ll just use the word calmer. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but

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there were more middle of the road people and lean

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Republican. Like, I lean Democrat, I lean toward

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Republican, but I really feel like a middle of the road.

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So that doesn’t seem to exist anymore. A lot of our middle of the road

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people are forced to choose and kind of just stay on that

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side. So to your question, I know this is a really

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roundabout kind of answer to your question, but

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in today’s society, I don’t think the enemy gets a vote. I think 30 years

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ago maybe they did. And I’m not sure if we’re better off for it or

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not. That part I don’t know. But if history tells us

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anything, that usually this is

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probably my favorite quote from any attorney or lawyer that I’ve ever heard in

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my lifetime in any kind of compromise. If both parties

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are happy, something went wrong. If both parties

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are miserable, something went right. If one party

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is happy and one party is miserable, then you didn’t do your job right.

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To the point is when you’re compromising in these

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situations, then you should not walk away from the table happy that you had to

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compromise, but you

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should be able to look across the table and see, quote unquote, your enemy however

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you want to word this and at least see another human being

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and realize that they’re not happy either. And if you’re both not happy, then

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something went right. And I don’t think that exists in today’s world right

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now. Well, and see, this is again, when you read literature,

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I don’t care if the literature is governmental founding documents or the

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hobbit, right. I don’t care what we’re reading. Right.

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Okay. I’ll use the founding documents as an example.

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King George II

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thought he had a legitimate reason

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to hold the the

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colonies of the United States, which was the United States at the

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time, but to hold the North American colonies in his grasp. He believed

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he had a legitimate argument. He got a vote.

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Jefferson list in the Declaration of Independence.

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I know because we read it on the podcast. He lists all

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of the things that they

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are opposed to and he even says in the text,

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we’ve sought redress. We’ve tried to fix this. Right?

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We’ve tried to use the systems that we have in

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place, and we’ve been ignored. We’ve had these

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responses and reactions. We’ve had escalation, and now we’re

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done. We’re out of the game.

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But at the end of it, he writes something that’s very, very

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interesting, basically says that we can

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be friends at the end of this. We just can’t be in a relationship

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together anymore.

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It’s the ultimate. It’s the ultimate. It’s

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not you, it’s me.

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Which by the way, so there’s one thing missing

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from your intro here too. You’re talking

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about the documentation of

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the Constitution, its influence from the King James Bible.

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But Native Americans had a very strong influence into

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the founding principles of our country. I

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shouldn’t say most people I hope everybody knows this by now, but sometimes

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people it’s not really that common of knowledge,

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but the indigenous people that were here

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used a very similar form of government than we have today.

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And by the way, the checks and balances were also there. It was just different.

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Right? So you had a chief that gained too much power,

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and they thought that he needed to be knocked

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down a peg. It was actually done by the elder women. So the elder women

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would basically hold a private council session with the

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chief and be like, listen, either you, either you cut this out or you’re gone.

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We’re going to replace you with somebody else. And the elder women had the authority

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to do that. So it was a council of elder women. But that

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check and balance kept even chiefs

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that Europeans were mistaking for kings

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and situations like that. They thought they had the same power that

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they were used to in Europe, but they didn’t. And the way in

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which we communicated was very similar to what you see in Congress today, where

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we had talking sticks and talking feathers and things like that, where only one person

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is allowed to talk so you can’t over talk somebody else that is holding that

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feather. There was councils divided, meaning not divided in

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arguments, but certain councils handled certain things. You’d

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have a council for war, a council for

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trade, a lot of these

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principles. Now granted, the Founding Fathers, in my

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opinion, did do a very nice job

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going deeper and really,

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I’ll say penciling out some formality to all of

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this, but a lot of people forget that these

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foundational principles come from something they encountered

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here. This wasn’t something they invented. It wasn’t something that they

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saw or something that they came up with. It was something that they saw

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and they were interacting with at the time well. And I only think it

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works. And one of our guests, who we’ll have on the podcast this month, derolo

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Nixon. He’s our friend of the show. He’s a lawyer,

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constitutional guy, very

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deeply well read. Good friend of the show. Had him on last year during the

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month of July to talk about the Constitution and, of course, the Federalist Papers, which

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were the arguments for the Constitution and the anti Federalist Papers, which

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were the arguments against. One of the points

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that Derolo makes is that

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you would not have had the Constitution and you would not have had that understanding

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of what they were seeing in the Iroquois

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Confederation and in other places, which is what you’re talking about.

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You wouldn’t have had that understanding from the Founding Fathers and from the people

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who came before them who, when they showed up, they recognized this without

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having an understanding of the Magna Carta coming

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in, right? And so they brought that idea

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that and this is a radically revolutionary idea and

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this is why I use the term Caesar for the vast majority

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of human history. Leaders are leaders.

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They have all the power, they’re the monarch, they do what they want.

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What is it the Greeks used to say? The strong do what they will and

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the weak suffer what they must. And that’s it, right?

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Raw power. Except even in those

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times the raw power didn’t work. But let’s just take that as a broad brush

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generality of leadership in human history.

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The Magna Cartar is the first time. And there might have been times

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in China, there might have been times in India, but those

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times either are not recorded or are not known to us. In the West, I’m

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sure we were not the Western world wasn’t the

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only we’re the only human beings that came up with this idea. So I’m going

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to put that caveat around it. But in the west, the Magna Carta is the

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first time where elements of the Bible come in

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and they are looked at and

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that divine right of kings thing is

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checked and the monarch is

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told both by the church and by average people,

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you need to go back in a box, buddy. You’re way too far out

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of the boundaries. And then the principle of that

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you are not above the law. If you create the law,

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it’s the practice what you preach kind of situation. Right, right,

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00:20:51,068 –> 00:20:54,886
yeah. Even I am not above the law. There are rules even on this

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show. Even I am not above the rules.

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Now, sometimes leaders will use that to

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hide in bureaucratic laziness. You get a

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lot of that. So if you go and you’re interacting with a civil

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structure, particularly a civil service structure, this happens in

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Texas. I know for sure it happens in Massachusetts in every other state I’ve ever

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lived in. But you go and you ask for a bureaucrat to do something for

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you and they will hide behind that. Even I’m not above, I can’t

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not my job or my personal favorite is what are you going to

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do? It’s the rules. And you go, you made them

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1000 years. Yeah.

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So that could be both a cudgel and an escape all at the same

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time. But that idea, that core idea that there should be

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rules and that the King or Caesar is not above the

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box that they’ve constructed for everybody else,

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is what then leads to this idea in the

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14th Amendment of equal protection. Yeah, go ahead. No, I was just going

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to say the thing I find interesting. You referenced the

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Magna Carter. Was that 1215? Right.

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So you referenced the Magna Carter that says you’re not above the law.

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But back then when they wrote the law, the law was the law.

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There was nothing to challenge it. Whereas again, with our founding fathers, they had the

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foresight to say even the laws are not

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above the law. Meaning just because we write it into law

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doesn’t mean that somebody else shouldn’t be able to challenge it and make sure that

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it makes sense for the people. Right? Hence the Supreme Court.

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We don’t have to talk about them right now because God only knows that they’re

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fallible amongst themselves, but we don’t have to talk about that.

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We’re going to hit that on another episode at a later date.

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But the idea, the concept anyway, makes perfect sense that

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says if we write this law and it doesn’t make sense for the people, the

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people have an avenue in which to challenge the law because the law itself is

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not above the law. That whole concept,

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again, it was just brilliant at the time. And they put in

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paper and put in practice and in principle

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in writing what they were witnessing. Right. So that was the one

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00:23:14,488 –> 00:23:17,666
difference. Right. So us as a people, and for those of you who don’t know,

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I am native, so I can speak to this a lot deeper if you

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ever want to, but we didn’t write this stuff down. We didn’t have

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that mechanism in place. It was such traditionalized

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that it was embedded in our culture, so that we just did it. It was

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like we just did it, and we acted on it. And it was never but

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we had the same thing. We had the same idea or concept of just

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because somebody makes a rule or just because the rule is

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today, doesn’t mean that that rule is going to be different tomorrow, or doesn’t mean

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that it can’t be. Things are there

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to adapt and proceed with you in order. We knew that our

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population was growing and we were marrying out. Even

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our sphere of influence was changing based on where our daughters went, where our

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00:24:00,660 –> 00:24:04,434
sons went. So it had to change with that right. So we already

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00:24:04,472 –> 00:24:08,158
knew all that, but we didn’t write it down. And our founding

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00:24:08,174 –> 00:24:11,678
fathers did a good job. I give them at least a little credit for

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that when it came to us. I give them

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00:24:15,484 –> 00:24:19,222
a little credit when the fact that they put to pen and paper

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00:24:19,276 –> 00:24:22,902
what we were doing in practice, and traditionalizing that they put it

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00:24:22,956 –> 00:24:26,690
into real into real practice, like into. Real pen and

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00:24:26,700 –> 00:24:30,250
paper. Well, speaking of interpretation,

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00:24:30,830 –> 00:24:33,660
but the 14th. Amendment specifically, by the way,

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I just want to make sure that your listeners know, I do, that the 14th

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00:24:38,644 –> 00:24:42,154
amendment did not apply to us. There is section

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00:24:42,202 –> 00:24:45,706
three in there. Where doesn’t matter. We weren’t considered

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00:24:45,738 –> 00:24:49,434
citizens until 1924 with the indian citizen act.

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00:24:49,492 –> 00:24:52,994
Right? Let’s get into that. All right.

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00:24:53,112 –> 00:24:56,962
No, we’re going to get into that right now, because I have a piece

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00:24:57,016 –> 00:25:00,738
that I would like to read to you here. I’m an interpretation of the

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00:25:00,744 –> 00:25:04,514
14th amendment from the national constitution center by brian

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00:25:04,562 –> 00:25:08,350
t. Fritz patrick and theodore m. Shaw. And by the way,

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we’ll have links to the national constitution center. We’ll have links to all of this

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00:25:11,628 –> 00:25:15,306
stuff, all these references that we are making in the

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00:25:15,328 –> 00:25:18,902
show notes below the player for this episode.

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So from the national constitution center, a common interpretation of

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the 14th amendment. They’re going to hit on some of this. Tom, you’re going to

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00:25:25,424 –> 00:25:28,798
love this. Ratified as it was after the civil war in

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00:25:28,804 –> 00:25:32,574
1868, there is little doubt what the equal protection clause was

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00:25:32,612 –> 00:25:36,106
intended to do stop states from discriminating against blacks.

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00:25:36,298 –> 00:25:39,438
But the text of the clause is worded very broadly, and it has come a

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00:25:39,444 –> 00:25:43,246
long way from its original purpose. For example, despite its reference

403
00:25:43,278 –> 00:25:46,866
to states, the clause has been read into the fifth amendment to

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00:25:46,888 –> 00:25:49,620
prevent the federal government from discriminating as well.

405
00:25:50,950 –> 00:25:54,406
Near the end of the 19th century, the court considered whether racial segregation by the

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00:25:54,428 –> 00:25:58,134
government violated the constitution if people were separated into different

407
00:25:58,172 –> 00:26:01,922
facilities by race. But those facilities were purportedly equally

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00:26:01,986 –> 00:26:04,630
suitable, did that constitute discrimination?

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00:26:05,130 –> 00:26:08,586
Historians have debated whether the 14th amendment was intended to end such

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00:26:08,608 –> 00:26:12,438
segregation, but in plesi v. Ferguson, the court ruled

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00:26:12,454 –> 00:26:16,206
by a seven to one vote that so called separate but equal facilities in that

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00:26:16,228 –> 00:26:19,658
case train cars for blacks and whites did not violate the Equal

413
00:26:19,674 –> 00:26:23,326
Protection Clause. The decision cemented into place

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00:26:23,428 –> 00:26:26,906
racist Jim Crow era laws. In a famous

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00:26:26,938 –> 00:26:30,554
dissent, justice John Marshall Harlan disagreed, stating, quote,

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our Constitution is colorblind. End quote. Plesy remained the law of the land

417
00:26:34,248 –> 00:26:38,034
until 1954, when it was overruled in Brown versus Board of Education.

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00:26:38,232 –> 00:26:41,850
The Supreme Court unanimously overruled the reasoning of Plesi and held that separate

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00:26:41,870 –> 00:26:45,554
schools for blacks and whites violated the Protection Clause. Brown

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00:26:45,602 –> 00:26:49,094
was a decisive turning point in a decades long struggle to

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dismantle governmentally opposed segregation, not only in schools, but throughout American

422
00:26:52,764 –> 00:26:56,614
society. Brown was a turning point, but it was not the end of the struggle.

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For example, it was not until 1967, in Loving versus Virginia that

424
00:27:00,432 –> 00:27:03,894
the Supreme Court held that laws prohibiting interracial marriages violated

425
00:27:03,942 –> 00:27:07,726
equal protection. Although the original purpose was

426
00:27:07,748 –> 00:27:11,006
to protect blacks from discrimination, the broad wording has led the Supreme Court to hold

427
00:27:11,028 –> 00:27:14,874
that all racial discrimination pache tom’s

428
00:27:14,922 –> 00:27:18,622
point here, including against whites, Hispanics, Asians and

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00:27:18,676 –> 00:27:21,490
Native Americans is constitutionally suspect.

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00:27:22,230 –> 00:27:25,714
These holdings have led to an ongoing debate for the last several decades over whether

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00:27:25,752 –> 00:27:29,474
it is unconstitutional for governments to consider the race of blacks, Hispanics and

432
00:27:29,512 –> 00:27:33,314
Native Americans as a positive factor in university

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00:27:33,362 –> 00:27:37,014
admissions, employment and government contracting. We will address

434
00:27:37,052 –> 00:27:40,738
this question in our separate statements. The Supreme

435
00:27:40,754 –> 00:27:44,154
Court has also used the Equal Protection Clause to prohibit discrimination on other

436
00:27:44,192 –> 00:27:47,946
bases besides race. Most laws are assessed under so

437
00:27:47,968 –> 00:27:51,626
called rational basis scrutiny. Here, any plausible and

438
00:27:51,648 –> 00:27:55,354
legitimate reason for the discrimination is sufficient to render it

439
00:27:55,392 –> 00:27:59,050
constitutional. But laws that rely on so called suspect

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00:27:59,130 –> 00:28:02,926
classifications are assessed under heightened scrutiny here. The government must

441
00:28:02,948 –> 00:28:06,746
have important or compelling reasons to justify the discrimination, and the discrimination

442
00:28:06,778 –> 00:28:10,046
must be carefully tailored to serve those reasons. What types of

443
00:28:10,068 –> 00:28:13,806
classifications are suspect. In light of the history of the Equal Protection Clause,

444
00:28:13,838 –> 00:28:17,618
it is no surprise that race and national origin are suspect classifications. But the

445
00:28:17,624 –> 00:28:21,106
Court has also held that gender, immigration status and wedlock

446
00:28:21,138 –> 00:28:23,810
status at birth qualify as suspect

447
00:28:23,890 –> 00:28:27,366
classifications. The Court has rejected arguments that age and

448
00:28:27,388 –> 00:28:30,950
poverty should be elevated to suspect classifications.

449
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One of the greatest controversies regarding the Equal Protection Clause today is whether the

450
00:28:35,824 –> 00:28:39,370
Court should find that sexual orientation is a suspect classification.

451
00:28:39,870 –> 00:28:43,526
In its recent same sex marriage opinion, Obergefeld

452
00:28:43,558 –> 00:28:47,226
versus Hodges, that was 2015 the Court suggested that discrimination

453
00:28:47,258 –> 00:28:51,086
against gays and lesbians can violate the Equal Protection Clause. But the Court did

454
00:28:51,108 –> 00:28:54,080
not decide what level of scrutiny should apply, leaving this question

455
00:28:54,610 –> 00:28:57,810
for another day. Like many

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00:28:57,880 –> 00:29:01,474
constitutional provisions, the Equal Protection Clause continues to be

457
00:29:01,592 –> 00:29:04,770
in flux. Close quote.

458
00:29:06,790 –> 00:29:09,380
Now, we are recording this

459
00:29:10,810 –> 00:29:14,166
in July of 2023, where

460
00:29:14,348 –> 00:29:18,082
and we got to frame this the Supreme Court recently

461
00:29:18,146 –> 00:29:21,270
struck down affirmative action

462
00:29:21,690 –> 00:29:25,130
as a factor in admission to higher

463
00:29:25,200 –> 00:29:28,890
education institutions. We will cover

464
00:29:28,960 –> 00:29:32,202
that issue in a separate podcast later on. We’re not going to cover that

465
00:29:32,256 –> 00:29:36,046
today. As Tom was saying earlier, that’s way too broad, and

466
00:29:36,068 –> 00:29:39,386
I don’t want to delve that deeply into the Supreme Court on this podcast

467
00:29:39,498 –> 00:29:43,294
today. Instead, I want to make a

468
00:29:43,332 –> 00:29:44,320
point here.

469
00:29:47,090 –> 00:29:50,914
The Equal Protection clause continues to be in flux, just like all of

470
00:29:50,952 –> 00:29:54,130
the other clauses in the Constitution are in

471
00:29:54,200 –> 00:29:57,966
flux. And this is because the tension between the words of the Declaration

472
00:29:57,998 –> 00:30:01,634
of Independence and the facts of the reality of the dynamics

473
00:30:01,682 –> 00:30:04,982
between people of different races, different classes, and different

474
00:30:05,036 –> 00:30:08,614
abilities has always been hard to navigate in a

475
00:30:08,652 –> 00:30:11,954
country as bold as the United States. This is a bold

476
00:30:12,002 –> 00:30:15,180
experiment, and we don’t often

477
00:30:16,670 –> 00:30:19,260
well, it’s really hard to understand

478
00:30:20,030 –> 00:30:23,834
how strange it is in other people’s houses if you don’t go

479
00:30:23,872 –> 00:30:27,326
live there. All you see when you’re in your own house is the mess that

480
00:30:27,348 –> 00:30:30,800
you’re surrounded by. You don’t see how special it is

481
00:30:33,900 –> 00:30:37,608
to hold the truths that were stated in the

482
00:30:37,614 –> 00:30:41,436
Declaration of Independence as being self evident. To hold these truths as being something to

483
00:30:41,458 –> 00:30:45,260
fight and die for, we must be able to acknowledge, and this is something huge

484
00:30:45,410 –> 00:30:48,972
a Creator who is eternal transcendent and probably more

485
00:30:49,026 –> 00:30:52,130
moral than us not probably more moral than us,

486
00:30:52,740 –> 00:30:55,170
and will give us justice, by the way.

487
00:30:56,820 –> 00:31:00,624
And the civil magistrate in our system, our republic, such as it

488
00:31:00,662 –> 00:31:04,276
were, must acknowledge and be humble in the face of that

489
00:31:04,298 –> 00:31:07,396
creator we just talked about, the Magna Carta. That was huge,

490
00:31:07,498 –> 00:31:11,124
right? And when the government established by

491
00:31:11,162 –> 00:31:14,484
flawed people no longer acknowledges a transcendent creator in

492
00:31:14,522 –> 00:31:18,184
action, forget the lip service of words, which is what many

493
00:31:18,222 –> 00:31:21,880
folks in our country are worried about today, that government

494
00:31:21,950 –> 00:31:25,160
is well on its way to becoming tyrannical.

495
00:31:25,820 –> 00:31:28,600
Because when there’s nobody higher than Caesar

496
00:31:30,960 –> 00:31:34,428
or there’s nobody higher than the magistrate, what have you

497
00:31:34,434 –> 00:31:38,168
got? And that tension

498
00:31:38,264 –> 00:31:41,712
between the reality of what is actually being

499
00:31:41,846 –> 00:31:45,120
walked out on the ground and the vision of the United

500
00:31:45,190 –> 00:31:48,960
States may be too great, maybe too hard,

501
00:31:49,030 –> 00:31:51,730
maybe too hard,

502
00:31:52,580 –> 00:31:56,036
too tight for leaders to grasp and hold on

503
00:31:56,058 –> 00:31:56,630
to.

504
00:32:00,300 –> 00:32:03,530
This is also the spot where you get into

505
00:32:04,780 –> 00:32:07,816
the idea, and Tom sort of brought it up, and I want to explore this

506
00:32:07,838 –> 00:32:11,660
a little bit with him now of the leader

507
00:32:12,240 –> 00:32:15,496
deciding what rules he’s going to follow and what ones he’s

508
00:32:15,528 –> 00:32:19,372
not. So

509
00:32:19,426 –> 00:32:23,064
let’s start there. If I’m

510
00:32:23,112 –> 00:32:26,668
leading people, forget a country that’s too complicated.

511
00:32:26,844 –> 00:32:30,656
There’s 315,000,000 people in this country. Let me go on record, I never want

512
00:32:30,678 –> 00:32:34,068
to be president, ever. Same, by the

513
00:32:34,074 –> 00:32:37,750
way, ever. Zero interest in that office.

514
00:32:39,560 –> 00:32:43,328
Now, mayor, mayor, mayor, town. I could handle

515
00:32:43,344 –> 00:32:47,108
that. Look, mayor is a very easy job. You put up a light,

516
00:32:47,194 –> 00:32:50,424
people yell at you in the local diner, and you go home. Are you

517
00:32:50,462 –> 00:32:54,196
done? The mayor

518
00:32:54,228 –> 00:32:57,336
of the town that I lived in, that I live in right now. In

519
00:32:57,358 –> 00:33:01,084
Texas. I’ll tell this small anecdote so I was

520
00:33:01,122 –> 00:33:04,952
out last week with my wife and my youngest son, and we’re

521
00:33:05,016 –> 00:33:08,060
having dinner or whatever, and the mayor of the town

522
00:33:10,400 –> 00:33:13,420
is in the restaurant, right? And he’s sitting at the bar, he’s drinking with whatever.

523
00:33:13,490 –> 00:33:16,944
It’s fine, I don’t care. And I pointed him out to my son. Now

524
00:33:17,062 –> 00:33:20,896
my youngest boy is six, so

525
00:33:20,918 –> 00:33:24,736
I pointed him out to him. I was like, that’s the mayor. Now, there’s a

526
00:33:24,758 –> 00:33:26,588
great book that I used to read to him when he was a little little

527
00:33:26,614 –> 00:33:30,448
kid called Little Blue Truck. It’s

528
00:33:30,464 –> 00:33:33,716
a rhyming book, of course. And inside of Little Blue Truck, there’s a character called

529
00:33:33,738 –> 00:33:37,476
the Mayor until like, the little blue truck goes to the town and the

530
00:33:37,498 –> 00:33:40,088
mayor rides around the back of the little blue truck and then stands up and

531
00:33:40,094 –> 00:33:43,592
gives a speech. And you always say in the rhyming dog

532
00:33:43,646 –> 00:33:46,916
oral of the story, the mayor

533
00:33:47,028 –> 00:33:50,856
stepped out. That’s kind of how I think of it. And

534
00:33:50,878 –> 00:33:53,048
I kind of said that to him a little bit and he’s like, oh, that’s

535
00:33:53,064 –> 00:33:56,396
the mayor. Anyway, so he got really excited about that because he’s six, right? He

536
00:33:56,418 –> 00:33:59,644
thinks that means something. It does for a six year old,

537
00:33:59,762 –> 00:34:03,424
anyway, sitting over there and I’m eating and we get our food and

538
00:34:03,462 –> 00:34:06,880
all that. And to make a boring story

539
00:34:06,950 –> 00:34:10,684
interesting, not a long story short, but a boring story interesting, the mayor

540
00:34:10,732 –> 00:34:14,496
walks over and shakes my hand and he

541
00:34:14,518 –> 00:34:17,564
starts talking to me and asking me how work is going. And he introduces himself

542
00:34:17,612 –> 00:34:20,708
to my wife and he’s like, oh, and who’s this young man right here? And

543
00:34:20,714 –> 00:34:24,196
I was like, this is and I said my son’s name and I

544
00:34:24,218 –> 00:34:27,336
introduced my son to the mayor. And after he walked out, he looked at me

545
00:34:27,358 –> 00:34:31,144
like, you’ve met a celebrity. That’s what

546
00:34:31,182 –> 00:34:34,964
you need right there. That’s the level of civil

547
00:34:35,012 –> 00:34:38,616
government. That’s the heights I would like to hit. I don’t want to be

548
00:34:38,638 –> 00:34:41,364
president. I want to be mayor. I want to make some six year old kids

549
00:34:41,422 –> 00:34:45,196
life happy for like 5 seconds, by

550
00:34:45,218 –> 00:34:48,460
the way, just to go completely be completely transparent.

551
00:34:48,800 –> 00:34:52,290
I did not vote for that gentleman, nor did I campaign for him.

552
00:34:53,460 –> 00:34:55,890
But he’s a fine guy. I don’t have a problem with him.

553
00:34:58,500 –> 00:35:01,170
The idea that

554
00:35:02,420 –> 00:35:05,876
we can, in a

555
00:35:05,898 –> 00:35:09,556
republic, hold our

556
00:35:09,578 –> 00:35:11,670
leaders accountable, right,

557
00:35:13,160 –> 00:35:16,568
and that they are not above the rules that they create is

558
00:35:16,654 –> 00:35:20,116
critical and is crucial. But what’s even more crucial

559
00:35:20,228 –> 00:35:23,400
is, I think, how we actually

560
00:35:23,470 –> 00:35:25,530
practically do that

561
00:35:26,940 –> 00:35:30,088
and having the courage to be able to do that. So how do we have

562
00:35:30,094 –> 00:35:33,564
the courage to be able to do that? Let’s start with that because that’s into

563
00:35:33,602 –> 00:35:37,372
some other things. I think it’s funny that you brought up your son, because

564
00:35:37,426 –> 00:35:41,260
I think if you boil it down even further,

565
00:35:42,480 –> 00:35:46,208
you got the rulers of countries, but then you

566
00:35:46,214 –> 00:35:49,616
come down to the mayor, and then you got family units, right? Right. So if

567
00:35:49,638 –> 00:35:53,436
you think about it, all the same rules apply, right? I’m

568
00:35:53,468 –> 00:35:57,248
the dad, my wife’s the mom, and we’re not above the rules either, right? But

569
00:35:57,254 –> 00:35:59,764
every once in a while, we break them. And if your kid calls you out

570
00:35:59,802 –> 00:36:02,336
on it, you better have a pretty damn good answer as to why you broke

571
00:36:02,368 –> 00:36:05,976
the rules. And then it gives you an opportunity to teach them

572
00:36:05,998 –> 00:36:09,512
that. Again, like I said earlier, not every rule is

573
00:36:09,566 –> 00:36:13,336
established to be a permanent rule forever and ever and ever until

574
00:36:13,358 –> 00:36:17,208
the end of human existence. In the

575
00:36:17,214 –> 00:36:20,724
leadership roles, there are times where you

576
00:36:20,782 –> 00:36:24,476
simply have no choice, right? Like, you have a rule in

577
00:36:24,498 –> 00:36:28,316
your company that nobody pays an invoice on time, right?

578
00:36:28,338 –> 00:36:31,596
I don’t know. I’m just making something up, right? So we have terms for a

579
00:36:31,618 –> 00:36:35,196
reason, and they give us 30 days, and I want you to pay it on

580
00:36:35,218 –> 00:36:38,848
the 31st day. I don’t care what the whatever. And then

581
00:36:38,934 –> 00:36:41,856
the owner of the company comes in and goes, no, this bill needs to be

582
00:36:41,878 –> 00:36:44,450
paid, like, today, right now. But it says we have until

583
00:36:45,380 –> 00:36:48,656
30 more days to pay it. It doesn’t matter. Pay it right now. But you’re

584
00:36:48,688 –> 00:36:52,016
going against your own rule. I just need you to pay rent.

585
00:36:52,208 –> 00:36:55,430
So if you’re going to do that,

586
00:36:57,100 –> 00:37:00,568
like our founding fathers, you have to have just cause, right? You have you have

587
00:37:00,574 –> 00:37:04,276
to be able to refer to something that gives your employee

588
00:37:04,468 –> 00:37:08,104
the the acknowledgment that they were

589
00:37:08,142 –> 00:37:11,464
right to challenge you, that they were

590
00:37:11,502 –> 00:37:15,276
right to ask you those questions, but you still need them

591
00:37:15,298 –> 00:37:19,116
to do it, and here’s why. But you need to be able to

592
00:37:19,138 –> 00:37:22,876
you can’t just say, because I said so, especially in today’s day and

593
00:37:22,898 –> 00:37:26,624
age, you can’t just go to the employee and say, pay this invoice. Well, you

594
00:37:26,662 –> 00:37:30,508
said that our company policy says this. I don’t

595
00:37:30,524 –> 00:37:33,808
care, I’m in charge. It’s my company. Pay the invoice. That’s the end of it.

596
00:37:33,894 –> 00:37:37,696
Because I said so. I’m

597
00:37:37,728 –> 00:37:41,444
assuming there are plenty of leaders that do that. The problem is you

598
00:37:41,482 –> 00:37:45,220
shouldn’t if you then say to that employee, you know what? You’re absolutely

599
00:37:45,290 –> 00:37:48,948
right, and I think maybe we need to revisit this policy,

600
00:37:49,034 –> 00:37:52,648
but for now, I need you to pay the invoice anyway. Let me explain why

601
00:37:52,814 –> 00:37:56,616
we have this upcoming blah, blah, blah. This company is going to be a

602
00:37:56,638 –> 00:38:00,212
sponsor, but they’re not going to be a sponsor unless we pay our invoice

603
00:38:00,356 –> 00:38:03,996
quickly. Blah, blah, blah. I’m thinking of like, the hub spots of the world that

604
00:38:04,018 –> 00:38:06,924
have these big conferences or whatever, right?

605
00:38:07,122 –> 00:38:10,556
But I’m trying to fit it into a box

606
00:38:10,658 –> 00:38:14,352
here for the podcast purposes, and

607
00:38:14,406 –> 00:38:16,976
it could be a multitude of things. I’m just picking one that I think is

608
00:38:16,998 –> 00:38:20,704
the easiest to explain. But the reality of it is

609
00:38:20,822 –> 00:38:24,210
you as a leader have to know

610
00:38:24,580 –> 00:38:28,356
going to that employee already and asking them to

611
00:38:28,378 –> 00:38:31,892
do that, that you should. And here’s the other thing, too. You

612
00:38:31,946 –> 00:38:35,764
should expect them to challenge that or at least ask the question.

613
00:38:35,882 –> 00:38:39,688
And if they don’t, that’s a different problem altogether, right? Like now you

614
00:38:39,694 –> 00:38:43,444
have a different problem from your company’s perspective, from a leadership perspective.

615
00:38:43,572 –> 00:38:47,400
Well, there’s dynamics between where does authority come from,

616
00:38:47,470 –> 00:38:51,116
right? Yeah. We haven’t really talked about that on this podcast, but

617
00:38:51,298 –> 00:38:54,504
this is good because we’ve

618
00:38:54,552 –> 00:38:58,316
determined you talk about larger structures and they’re breaking it down

619
00:38:58,338 –> 00:39:02,044
into like simple ones, right, like going from president to the family. Okay, yeah,

620
00:39:02,162 –> 00:39:05,856
great. So I’m going to go from the west to individuals. Right.

621
00:39:05,958 –> 00:39:09,520
In the west broadly, we’ve determined that authority comes

622
00:39:09,590 –> 00:39:13,148
from and this is why we read books on this podcast comes from the

623
00:39:13,174 –> 00:39:17,024
word that goes all the way down deep into the Bible

624
00:39:17,072 –> 00:39:19,510
and other stuff that’s all the way down deep. At

625
00:39:20,920 –> 00:39:24,452
the cornerstones of Western culture, we

626
00:39:24,506 –> 00:39:28,216
determine that words, language, speech, this is why freedom of

627
00:39:28,238 –> 00:39:32,010
speech is a real thing, right,

628
00:39:32,380 –> 00:39:36,084
that needs to be protected. And I’m not just talking about spoken

629
00:39:36,132 –> 00:39:39,770
words, I’m talking about written words. Right. We determine that the written word

630
00:39:40,620 –> 00:39:44,348
gives authority. Okay. After that, you can get

631
00:39:44,354 –> 00:39:46,748
into all kinds of different things. Who writes the word? What kind of power do

632
00:39:46,754 –> 00:39:49,710
they have? Yada. Yada. But the word is the thing. Okay,

633
00:39:50,480 –> 00:39:53,948
well, if the word is the thing and then you’re in a

634
00:39:53,954 –> 00:39:57,664
family unit and you said the word and your kid

635
00:39:57,702 –> 00:40:01,296
gets you and you’ve had this experience, you’ve been a parent long enough. I’ve been

636
00:40:01,318 –> 00:40:04,630
a parent long enough where I’ve caught myself going, well, because I said so,

637
00:40:08,040 –> 00:40:09,030
not okay,

638
00:40:12,280 –> 00:40:16,036
you’re going to wind up in a problem because what you’re doing then

639
00:40:16,058 –> 00:40:18,710
is then you’re saying the word wasn’t good enough.

640
00:40:19,580 –> 00:40:23,256
And what you’re doing is you’re sliding in authority there. And there

641
00:40:23,278 –> 00:40:27,076
are other cultures of the world that do operate off of authority, which is purely

642
00:40:27,108 –> 00:40:28,990
just I said this and

643
00:40:30,720 –> 00:40:34,348
I am the measure of that word. Right. But

644
00:40:34,514 –> 00:40:38,060
we don’t have that in our society.

645
00:40:38,800 –> 00:40:42,472
I won’t say we don’t have that. We do have that, but we are struggling

646
00:40:42,536 –> 00:40:46,364
mightily to push past that. And I think that’s something

647
00:40:46,402 –> 00:40:49,888
that is unique. You had a point. Well, no, I was just going to

648
00:40:49,894 –> 00:40:53,636
say when I was a kid, I heard a statement that always made me

649
00:40:53,658 –> 00:40:56,912
cringe a little bit because it lends

650
00:40:56,976 –> 00:41:00,390
to the definition, right. So

651
00:41:00,760 –> 00:41:04,564
they said to me, the difference between right and wrong is

652
00:41:04,602 –> 00:41:05,540
the majority.

653
00:41:09,240 –> 00:41:12,596
Think about that though, right? If the majority of people vote some

654
00:41:12,698 –> 00:41:16,312
wackadoo in office, we’re stuck with that president for the next four years

655
00:41:16,366 –> 00:41:19,356
unless they try to impeach him, get him out of office. Which we all know

656
00:41:19,378 –> 00:41:21,070
how well that works, but anyway.

657
00:41:23,920 –> 00:41:27,464
Apparently how well it works not once, but twice.

658
00:41:27,592 –> 00:41:28,750
Yeah, right.

659
00:41:33,040 –> 00:41:36,636
To get back to when your kid calls you on the carpet

660
00:41:36,668 –> 00:41:40,464
about something. As a parent, I learned very, very quickly. I

661
00:41:40,502 –> 00:41:43,090
learned very quickly how to handle that, right? So

662
00:41:44,500 –> 00:41:47,296
the first time my son did it and he’s my oldest, first time my son

663
00:41:47,318 –> 00:41:50,448
did it, I was like, I didn’t know what to say. I was frazzled. And

664
00:41:50,454 –> 00:41:53,056
I was like, Listen, you just got to do it. You got to do it.

665
00:41:53,078 –> 00:41:55,024
I don’t have time for this right now. You just got to do it, right?

666
00:41:55,062 –> 00:41:58,776
Right? Then as I encounter this more frequently, I came

667
00:41:58,798 –> 00:42:02,296
up with this thing saying, you’re right. I’m glad you called me on it, but

668
00:42:02,318 –> 00:42:05,176
I don’t have time to explain it to you right this second. I just need

669
00:42:05,198 –> 00:42:08,520
you to do it for now and remind me later, and we’ll talk about it,

670
00:42:08,590 –> 00:42:11,948
right? And then in my brain, I’m thinking 50 50 shot whether or not the

671
00:42:11,954 –> 00:42:13,790
kid remembers to ask me about it.

672
00:42:15,520 –> 00:42:18,956
If they don’t, fine. I just let it go. And if they do, great. Then

673
00:42:19,058 –> 00:42:22,796
we’ll have a conversation about how things change things in

674
00:42:22,818 –> 00:42:25,776
life, change your life’s never going to be the same. Rules have to change. Go

675
00:42:25,798 –> 00:42:29,424
with the flow. I have those conversations with them if they remember to ask

676
00:42:29,462 –> 00:42:32,944
me. But anyway, that’s a little off

677
00:42:32,982 –> 00:42:36,656
topic for this podcast, I think. But no, that’s

678
00:42:36,688 –> 00:42:40,436
actually a really good tip for leaders. Like, you got to buy yourself some

679
00:42:40,458 –> 00:42:44,036
time. Sometimes you’re in a high pressure situation.

680
00:42:44,138 –> 00:42:44,790
Sometimes

681
00:42:48,360 –> 00:42:51,850
you need your word followed, right?

682
00:42:53,180 –> 00:42:57,000
By the way, that also you talk about being a 50 50

683
00:42:57,070 –> 00:43:00,684
shot. I think it’s a 50 50 shot of whether or not

684
00:43:00,722 –> 00:43:04,252
that kid trusts you enough to come back and

685
00:43:04,306 –> 00:43:08,028
loves you enough to come back because you’ve done the hard work

686
00:43:08,114 –> 00:43:11,708
before of establishing that relationship. But I agree.

687
00:43:11,874 –> 00:43:14,896
Let’s say the leader does that hard work. If you’re doing the hard work of

688
00:43:14,918 –> 00:43:18,290
establishing the relationship before you’ve established trust, now, that works

689
00:43:19,940 –> 00:43:23,508
because now you got a baseline to work from.

690
00:43:23,594 –> 00:43:26,768
But if you’re new into a leadership role

691
00:43:26,944 –> 00:43:30,148
and your options

692
00:43:30,234 –> 00:43:33,700
are do what I told you to do because I told you to do it,

693
00:43:33,850 –> 00:43:37,590
or what Tom’s option is, which is,

694
00:43:38,060 –> 00:43:40,408
yes, do what I told you to do right now. I understand we’re in a

695
00:43:40,414 –> 00:43:44,264
time crunch, but come back and talk to me later. Take

696
00:43:44,302 –> 00:43:48,056
number two. And then I

697
00:43:48,078 –> 00:43:51,496
would add on to that. Don’t wait for them to follow up with you. I

698
00:43:51,518 –> 00:43:54,524
was going to say that. Follow up with them. You go follow up with them,

699
00:43:54,642 –> 00:43:58,156
because if you wait for them now, you’re missing the opportunity

700
00:43:58,258 –> 00:44:01,948
to build trust. And I would even say one step beyond that,

701
00:44:02,034 –> 00:44:05,660
because you just preface that by saying if you’re a new leader. I would say

702
00:44:05,730 –> 00:44:08,684
regardless of whether you’re a new leader or not, even if you’re an established leader

703
00:44:08,732 –> 00:44:12,476
who has trust built with that person, you should still take the initiative

704
00:44:12,508 –> 00:44:16,084
to go back to them and do that anyway. I still

705
00:44:16,122 –> 00:44:19,956
believe that. Now, one other thing, because I

706
00:44:19,978 –> 00:44:22,116
wanted to touch on this. You kind of brought it up a little bit. We

707
00:44:22,138 –> 00:44:24,500
talked about getting into equal protection.

708
00:44:29,340 –> 00:44:32,952
The US. Constitution begins with the

709
00:44:33,006 –> 00:44:36,744
statement, in order to form a more perfect union. I love

710
00:44:36,782 –> 00:44:40,250
that, by the way. More perfect. Not we are perfect.

711
00:44:40,560 –> 00:44:43,964
Not. We’re kind of sort of okay. Not.

712
00:44:44,162 –> 00:44:47,564
No, we’re hanging out here. No, we’re going to go towards more

713
00:44:47,602 –> 00:44:50,956
perfection. These guys knew how

714
00:44:50,978 –> 00:44:54,488
to set a vision, right? Yeah.

715
00:44:54,674 –> 00:44:58,016
And, by the way, knew how to set a vision understanding the

716
00:44:58,038 –> 00:45:01,696
fallibility of human beings and the frailty of human beings. And the

717
00:45:01,718 –> 00:45:04,828
possibility that to Benjamin Franklin’s point

718
00:45:04,934 –> 00:45:08,452
after the Declaration of Independence came

719
00:45:08,506 –> 00:45:11,924
out, when he was

720
00:45:11,962 –> 00:45:15,300
asked by someone very famous, quote

721
00:45:16,040 –> 00:45:19,768
or no, it was a constitution. After the

722
00:45:19,774 –> 00:45:23,240
arguments about the Constitution have been concluded

723
00:45:24,620 –> 00:45:26,040
in Philadelphia

724
00:45:28,460 –> 00:45:32,188
when asked by somebody, what is it that you’ve got? You said, well,

725
00:45:32,194 –> 00:45:34,990
we’ve got a republic if we can keep it.

726
00:45:36,320 –> 00:45:40,088
They didn’t think the experiment was going to hold together. They’d

727
00:45:40,104 –> 00:45:43,650
be and I’ve held this position for many, many years,

728
00:45:46,100 –> 00:45:49,040
I think Jefferson, Hamilton,

729
00:45:49,460 –> 00:45:52,784
Franklin, Washington, I think all those old

730
00:45:52,822 –> 00:45:56,516
boys, they’d be shocked that we got as

731
00:45:56,538 –> 00:46:00,308
far as we did. I agree with that. I

732
00:46:00,314 –> 00:46:03,604
think one thing, again you’re missing. There was the

733
00:46:03,642 –> 00:46:07,284
predecessor, the Constitutional Congress. They

734
00:46:07,322 –> 00:46:10,744
thought that was all right. They actually thought that people were going to just

735
00:46:10,862 –> 00:46:14,616
gravitate back toward that. That’s why they

736
00:46:14,638 –> 00:46:17,816
thought this was going to this experiment was going to fail, because they thought they

737
00:46:17,838 –> 00:46:21,436
already had it. Right. Right. Exactly. As we know they

738
00:46:21,458 –> 00:46:25,230
didn’t. They did. Well, they did. Now the forward thinking.

739
00:46:26,320 –> 00:46:30,028
But I think that we are also in this

740
00:46:30,114 –> 00:46:33,948
spot where and we’ll talk about this a little bit later on in

741
00:46:33,954 –> 00:46:37,744
the podcast towards the end of our show today, but I think we’re in this

742
00:46:37,782 –> 00:46:41,536
spot where we’re at the beginning of

743
00:46:41,558 –> 00:46:44,656
a third founding, I think. And it’s taken me a long time to kind of

744
00:46:44,678 –> 00:46:48,336
get to this idea, because we’re in one of those 80 year transitional moments that

745
00:46:48,358 –> 00:46:51,936
happens every 80 years in our country where all the political

746
00:46:51,968 –> 00:46:55,236
parties talk about being in Massachusetts, and there’s only, like, 15% of you who are

747
00:46:55,258 –> 00:46:59,056
Republicans and 85% of you who are Democrats. We’re

748
00:46:59,088 –> 00:47:02,596
in the midst of a transitional shift. The political

749
00:47:02,628 –> 00:47:06,010
parties are shifting around. The culture is shifting around.

750
00:47:08,140 –> 00:47:11,948
I see the two most recent Supreme Court decisions. And it’s not just those two,

751
00:47:12,034 –> 00:47:15,244
it’s a whole series of Supreme Court decisions going back at

752
00:47:15,282 –> 00:47:19,070
least ten to 15 years now, where

753
00:47:20,080 –> 00:47:23,788
I think we are the generation and

754
00:47:23,874 –> 00:47:27,644
I’ve actually been talking about this with a couple of people we are the generation,

755
00:47:27,692 –> 00:47:31,388
I think, not the one that will see the next turn. We won’t

756
00:47:31,404 –> 00:47:34,784
live that long, but we’re laying the foundation for that next turn to

757
00:47:34,822 –> 00:47:38,608
work. And that’s kind of one of the reasons why I do this podcast and

758
00:47:38,614 –> 00:47:40,736
the way that I do it. It’s why I read these books and talk about

759
00:47:40,758 –> 00:47:44,336
this with Tom and the way that I do and other guest co hosts on

760
00:47:44,358 –> 00:47:48,196
the show, because I do think that we’re the generation that lays that foundation.

761
00:47:48,228 –> 00:47:51,076
I think we’re in the midst of that right now. I could feel something shifting

762
00:47:51,108 –> 00:47:54,312
around in the cultural zeitgeist, and it might just be my own

763
00:47:54,366 –> 00:47:57,956
delusion, I’ll grant you that. It might very well be that. I might be delusional.

764
00:47:57,988 –> 00:48:00,408
Everything might be going off the rails, and we might be entirely going off the

765
00:48:00,414 –> 00:48:02,730
cliff, but I don’t think so.

766
00:48:05,580 –> 00:48:08,924
I think there’s been something that’s unstated that’s going on in our culture right now

767
00:48:08,962 –> 00:48:12,092
that we’re we’re kind of making a decision about which direction we’re going to go,

768
00:48:12,146 –> 00:48:15,984
and it’s 315,000,000 people. And to

769
00:48:16,022 –> 00:48:19,248
Tom’s point about equal protection. So I want to close this loop on here because

770
00:48:19,254 –> 00:48:22,476
I want to get his comments on this. Equal protection means equal

771
00:48:22,508 –> 00:48:26,132
protection. We didn’t get this

772
00:48:26,186 –> 00:48:29,604
right from the founding, by the

773
00:48:29,642 –> 00:48:32,660
way, in the Anti Federalist Papers.

774
00:48:33,320 –> 00:48:36,230
They knew they screwed up on the slavery thing.

775
00:48:37,080 –> 00:48:40,776
They knew they were not under any illusions that they

776
00:48:40,798 –> 00:48:44,552
had somehow solved this problem. They just thought,

777
00:48:44,686 –> 00:48:48,468
this is a fight we can’t have right now, so we’re going to push

778
00:48:48,484 –> 00:48:52,184
it off for another day. Not maybe human beings will get better, not maybe

779
00:48:52,222 –> 00:48:55,596
we’ll be less fallible. We’ll push it off for another day,

780
00:48:55,778 –> 00:48:59,404
and at some point we’re going to have it. Matter of fact, one

781
00:48:59,442 –> 00:49:01,180
person in the Anti Federalist Papers

782
00:49:02,820 –> 00:49:04,850
judge, he says

783
00:49:07,140 –> 00:49:10,770
basically God deals out judgment and justice to nations, because

784
00:49:11,220 –> 00:49:14,968
that’s who God does that. Human beings don’t do that. God does that. God deals

785
00:49:15,004 –> 00:49:18,580
out justice to nations, and he will deal out justice to us

786
00:49:18,650 –> 00:49:21,924
for this. And apparently all the Southern reps at

787
00:49:21,962 –> 00:49:23,940
the Constitutional

788
00:49:25,400 –> 00:49:28,280
Convention basically sat mute.

789
00:49:29,500 –> 00:49:32,856
Interesting. Okay. They’re like, oh, okay, yeah, it probably will happen that

790
00:49:32,878 –> 00:49:33,450
way.

791
00:49:38,140 –> 00:49:41,709
Right, yeah, you’re right. But we don’t care. Yeah, we don’t care. What are you

792
00:49:41,709 –> 00:49:44,748
going to do? What are you going to do? Let us go. We’re going to

793
00:49:44,754 –> 00:49:47,420
go right back to England. Then, like, South Carolina.

794
00:49:48,480 –> 00:49:52,316
South Carolina? North Carolina. Carolinas would have gone back. They would have taken Virginia with

795
00:49:52,338 –> 00:49:55,776
them, which at the time talk about Massachusetts. Virginia and

796
00:49:55,798 –> 00:49:59,616
Massachusetts were the two sort of that was back when Massachusetts was more

797
00:49:59,638 –> 00:50:02,892
connected to Maine, but they were the two kind of giant

798
00:50:02,956 –> 00:50:06,688
lodestone, sort of sort of twin pillars.

799
00:50:06,784 –> 00:50:10,564
Right? Which is why it’s interesting that Joshua Chamberlain holds little

800
00:50:10,602 –> 00:50:14,404
round top at Gettysburg against

801
00:50:14,522 –> 00:50:17,780
the hordes from, interestingly enough, Texas.

802
00:50:20,620 –> 00:50:24,024
Interesting, those Texas boys charged that hill multiple times.

803
00:50:24,142 –> 00:50:27,944
Yes, they did. And they didn’t get to the top

804
00:50:27,982 –> 00:50:31,484
of it, but it was a miracle because his left flank almost

805
00:50:31,522 –> 00:50:34,924
entirely, completely collapsed. And if it had

806
00:50:34,962 –> 00:50:38,764
been, perhaps this conversation would be happening in a totally different

807
00:50:38,802 –> 00:50:41,944
environment, equal

808
00:50:41,992 –> 00:50:45,728
protection. Like you

809
00:50:45,734 –> 00:50:49,404
said, you’re an advocate for Native

810
00:50:49,452 –> 00:50:53,216
American rights and Native American

811
00:50:53,318 –> 00:50:57,104
justice. Obviously, there are strong feelings

812
00:50:57,152 –> 00:51:00,916
about this. I’m an African American guy, right? I’m a black

813
00:51:00,938 –> 00:51:04,420
guy. We’re a black guy. To Native American guy having this conversation

814
00:51:07,160 –> 00:51:10,776
both, by the way, not knocking the country, but in

815
00:51:10,798 –> 00:51:14,424
praise of the country, right? How do we

816
00:51:14,462 –> 00:51:18,168
as minorities navigate this tension? Because that’s always the thing. It’s that

817
00:51:18,174 –> 00:51:21,944
49%, right? The ones who aren’t the 51%, the ones

818
00:51:21,982 –> 00:51:25,816
who didn’t get recognized, right? The ones who weren’t

819
00:51:25,848 –> 00:51:29,660
maybe necessarily in the original promise. Martin Luther King Jr. Talks about this too,

820
00:51:29,730 –> 00:51:33,556
but I’d be curious to know how do you navigate that tension

821
00:51:33,608 –> 00:51:36,624
as a leader? Or how do you navigate that tension just in thinking about these

822
00:51:36,662 –> 00:51:37,250
issues?

823
00:51:40,020 –> 00:51:43,824
Yikes. Well, that’s the second load of gun I had you

824
00:51:44,022 –> 00:51:47,524
during the episode today. So here’s an interesting thing,

825
00:51:47,562 –> 00:51:48,150
right?

826
00:51:51,880 –> 00:51:55,076
You might understand this better if I do it this way, right?

827
00:51:55,178 –> 00:51:58,836
Okay. One of the things that I get very frustrated with,

828
00:51:58,858 –> 00:52:02,516
and for those of you who are listening to here, you can’t

829
00:52:02,548 –> 00:52:05,930
see but if you’re watching the podcast on the video, you can see that

830
00:52:06,540 –> 00:52:10,376
in the Native community, I am what we call past for

831
00:52:10,398 –> 00:52:14,020
white, right? So if you didn’t know any better and you walked

832
00:52:14,100 –> 00:52:17,528
by me on the street, you would just assume I was some Anglo Saxon

833
00:52:17,624 –> 00:52:21,324
whatever, right? I don’t even know, because quite honestly, I can’t compare myself

834
00:52:21,362 –> 00:52:24,876
to other people and say I look Italian or Irish or English or Scottish or

835
00:52:24,898 –> 00:52:28,256
whatever. Honestly, I have no idea. I would take your word for it. If you

836
00:52:28,278 –> 00:52:31,456
said I looked more Irish than English or English than French or whatever, I’d be

837
00:52:31,478 –> 00:52:34,850
like, okay, because I really don’t care, right? But

838
00:52:35,400 –> 00:52:38,932
what I get frustrated on is when I have the conversation with people

839
00:52:39,066 –> 00:52:42,628
and they before they know I

840
00:52:42,714 –> 00:52:46,516
am of Native descent and we’re talking for

841
00:52:46,538 –> 00:52:50,020
some reason, somehow I get into conversations about Native either

842
00:52:50,090 –> 00:52:53,448
culture or law or whatever before the

843
00:52:53,534 –> 00:52:57,352
topic of who I am even comes up. Eventually they stop

844
00:52:57,406 –> 00:52:59,816
me and they go, well, why is this so important to you? And I go,

845
00:52:59,838 –> 00:53:03,596
oh, I probably should have mentioned I am Native. And they go, oh,

846
00:53:03,698 –> 00:53:07,356
really? They really get puzzled when they look at me and they say that. And

847
00:53:07,378 –> 00:53:11,212
I go, Why would you question that? I don’t understand. Why

848
00:53:11,266 –> 00:53:15,104
are we the only race in our country that

849
00:53:15,142 –> 00:53:18,976
gets questioned about the validity of who we are? We’re the only ones.

850
00:53:19,158 –> 00:53:22,816
If you turned to somebody and said, I’m Dominican, they’d be

851
00:53:22,838 –> 00:53:23,650
like, okay.

852
00:53:27,080 –> 00:53:30,452
If you said I’m half Mexican and half

853
00:53:30,506 –> 00:53:34,180
Nigerian, they’d go, okay. If you told

854
00:53:34,250 –> 00:53:37,776
somebody that your parents both came from England,

855
00:53:37,968 –> 00:53:41,776
so technically you’re a dual citizen. You are also an English citizen, they’d

856
00:53:41,808 –> 00:53:45,656
go, oh, that’s cool. But as soon as a Native person says they’re native. They

857
00:53:45,678 –> 00:53:49,448
go, oh, really? Are you sure about that? You don’t look native. How do I

858
00:53:49,454 –> 00:53:53,004
know that you’re Native? And it really baffles me about this, number one. Number

859
00:53:53,042 –> 00:53:56,270
two. So I try to explain this to people in the best way I can,

860
00:53:56,720 –> 00:54:00,424
which is your assumptions of what Native

861
00:54:00,472 –> 00:54:03,776
people are or are not or what they look like and what they do not

862
00:54:03,798 –> 00:54:07,388
look like are simply based on preconceived

863
00:54:07,404 –> 00:54:10,610
notions. My guess is from Hollywood, right? Because

864
00:54:11,940 –> 00:54:15,632
at some point back in the early days of Hollywood, native people

865
00:54:15,686 –> 00:54:19,104
didn’t even play our we didn’t even play ourselves in movies, right? We were being

866
00:54:19,142 –> 00:54:22,324
played by Italians and the spaghetti Westerns and all that other

867
00:54:22,362 –> 00:54:26,096
stuff. Somebody had the idea, the foresight to say, hey, here’s

868
00:54:26,128 –> 00:54:28,436
an idea. Why don’t we just go get some Native people and let them play

869
00:54:28,458 –> 00:54:32,184
Native roles? But what ended up happening was they got the same

870
00:54:32,222 –> 00:54:35,736
Native people to play every role in the Native community, which

871
00:54:35,758 –> 00:54:39,192
means the guy who played a Navajo Code

872
00:54:39,246 –> 00:54:43,084
Talker is the same guy that’s playing Squanto, which is

873
00:54:43,122 –> 00:54:46,876
up here in the Northeast, in Massachusetts. So now we’re just

874
00:54:46,898 –> 00:54:50,444
assuming that every Native look like Squanto and the Navajo Code

875
00:54:50,482 –> 00:54:54,316
Talker, they all look like that. And the reality of it was

876
00:54:54,338 –> 00:54:56,716
and I tell people this all the time, I ask people, this is my favorite

877
00:54:56,748 –> 00:55:00,108
part. Let me get this straight.

878
00:55:00,284 –> 00:55:03,824
Your concept or your idea, somebody that lived for

879
00:55:03,862 –> 00:55:07,636
thousands of years here in the Northeast looks the same way as somebody who

880
00:55:07,658 –> 00:55:10,660
lived for thousands of years in the Southwest desert.

881
00:55:12,200 –> 00:55:15,988
Do you have the same idea or concept of Africa? Because if you

882
00:55:15,994 –> 00:55:19,696
look at the continent of Africa, people that live in the northern parts of Africa

883
00:55:19,728 –> 00:55:22,936
do not look the same as the people who look in the central parts of

884
00:55:22,958 –> 00:55:26,712
Africa or the southern parts of Africa. There is

885
00:55:26,766 –> 00:55:30,372
skin tone differences, there’s facial feature, feature

886
00:55:30,436 –> 00:55:34,264
differences. They’re just not the same people. We

887
00:55:34,302 –> 00:55:37,992
come to that conclusion, and we understand that, and we accept that, but we don’t

888
00:55:38,056 –> 00:55:41,724
here in the US. For some strange reason, we just have a hard time. Now,

889
00:55:41,762 –> 00:55:44,828
mind you, my people come from here in the Northeast,

890
00:55:44,924 –> 00:55:48,752
southeastern Canada, northeastern United States. We had pretty light

891
00:55:48,806 –> 00:55:52,624
skin. We were covered nine months out of the year because

892
00:55:52,662 –> 00:55:56,496
it was cold. And by the way, we had

893
00:55:56,518 –> 00:55:59,030
just recently had an ice age, right? Yeah.

894
00:56:00,280 –> 00:56:04,004
Our skin tones were not the same as the tones that you see

895
00:56:04,042 –> 00:56:07,536
in the Southwest, which were a little bit darker, a little bit more bronze.

896
00:56:07,648 –> 00:56:10,280
Again, if you take the continent of Africa into consideration.

897
00:56:10,860 –> 00:56:14,264
So I say all that because I think that we get

898
00:56:14,302 –> 00:56:17,944
discriminated on without people even realizing it. When

899
00:56:17,982 –> 00:56:21,130
people treat me as if they just see me,

900
00:56:22,220 –> 00:56:25,724
I don’t like that. I don’t like the fact that and you could talk

901
00:56:25,762 –> 00:56:29,436
about whatever, privilege and white whatever, and they’re like

902
00:56:29,538 –> 00:56:32,748
because I’ve actually had people say to me, well, what do you care? It benefits

903
00:56:32,834 –> 00:56:36,576
you, right? It benefits you that people treat you white or that you

904
00:56:36,598 –> 00:56:40,304
look white or whatever, and I go, oh, contrem or FRE. No,

905
00:56:40,422 –> 00:56:44,076
it doesn’t benefit me the way that I want to be treated. It doesn’t benefit

906
00:56:44,108 –> 00:56:47,860
me to be treated differently than my expectation is or

907
00:56:47,930 –> 00:56:51,764
to be treated I don’t like it, right? So to your

908
00:56:51,802 –> 00:56:55,312
protection on the law thing, you’re not supposed to see lady Liberty

909
00:56:55,376 –> 00:56:59,076
is blind or Lady Justice is blind, right? Like, we’re not supposed to

910
00:56:59,098 –> 00:57:02,728
see any of this stuff, so why does it still matter?

911
00:57:02,814 –> 00:57:05,656
But it does. It still matters. And not only does it matter to us from

912
00:57:05,678 –> 00:57:09,450
that perspective, but I referenced this earlier earlier here,

913
00:57:09,820 –> 00:57:13,496
that the 14th Amendment didn’t do anything for us, right?

914
00:57:13,598 –> 00:57:16,876
It didn’t do anything for us because we were not naturalized, and we were not

915
00:57:16,898 –> 00:57:20,492
considered U. S. Citizens until 1924, which I also find

916
00:57:20,546 –> 00:57:24,364
funny, by the way, because in 1924, they said, oh, we’re gonna

917
00:57:24,402 –> 00:57:27,870
we’re gonna say that you’re citizens, but

918
00:57:28,560 –> 00:57:32,204
we’re not gonna we we want you to be US. Citizens.

919
00:57:32,252 –> 00:57:36,016
So everything that makes you native, we’re going to take away from you. I.

920
00:57:36,038 –> 00:57:39,636
E. The Carlisle schools and the boarding schools and all that other stuff, you

921
00:57:39,658 –> 00:57:43,456
know, things like General general Sheridan saying, the only good Indian is a dead

922
00:57:43,488 –> 00:57:47,140
Indian, or other people saying, you know, to to,

923
00:57:47,210 –> 00:57:50,048
you know, to save the man, you have to kill the Indian. There’s all kinds

924
00:57:50,064 –> 00:57:53,770
of stuff out there like that. It wasn’t until 1964

925
00:57:54,140 –> 00:57:57,944
with the Native American Bill of Rights Act that we got some of those same

926
00:57:57,982 –> 00:58:01,288
freedoms freedom of speech, freedom to due process, freedom. All that stuff came in

927
00:58:01,294 –> 00:58:05,084
1964, by the way. One that was

928
00:58:05,122 –> 00:58:07,644
excluded in that was the freedom of religion. That didn’t come until

929
00:58:07,682 –> 00:58:11,404
1978. So we weren’t even

930
00:58:11,442 –> 00:58:14,530
allowed to practice our own religion until 1978.

931
00:58:16,740 –> 00:58:19,808
Again, this ties into that whole, like, more perfect

932
00:58:19,894 –> 00:58:22,290
union, because you can go

933
00:58:24,020 –> 00:58:27,510
minority group by minority group by minority group in this country.

934
00:58:27,880 –> 00:58:31,508
And there is a litany of, to paraphrase from the

935
00:58:31,514 –> 00:58:35,296
Declaration of Independent Independence, usurpations and abuses

936
00:58:35,488 –> 00:58:38,884
that have been foisted on minority group after minority group after minority

937
00:58:38,932 –> 00:58:42,650
group in our country, and yet

938
00:58:45,020 –> 00:58:48,730
I am not aware of any minority group

939
00:58:49,340 –> 00:58:52,876
yours, mine, or any others that’s voting with their feet to go

940
00:58:52,898 –> 00:58:55,900
someplace else. Agreed.

941
00:58:59,280 –> 00:59:02,780
Right. Years

942
00:59:02,850 –> 00:59:06,384
ago, when I was in college, years ago, an

943
00:59:06,422 –> 00:59:09,596
African student, actually interestingly, from Sierra

944
00:59:09,628 –> 00:59:13,168
Leone, he was kind of surprised that I knew where Sierra Leone was. So it’s

945
00:59:13,174 –> 00:59:16,540
like, well, it’s not Morocco, so, yes, I’m aware of the geography of the continent.

946
00:59:16,620 –> 00:59:20,150
By the way, africans, they have the same problem that you’ve got

947
00:59:21,160 –> 00:59:24,496
oh, my God. You got people from Liberia,

948
00:59:24,688 –> 00:59:28,024
and they’ll yell about how they’re not South African or Kenyan. Like, they’re like, every

949
00:59:28,062 –> 00:59:31,912
single person in Hollywood is Kenyan. That’s not me. Give me a break

950
00:59:31,966 –> 00:59:35,336
or Nigerians. Nigerian. Nigerians. Don’t get me

951
00:59:35,358 –> 00:59:36,810
started. Okay.

952
00:59:39,660 –> 00:59:43,256
But I was having a discussion. He was like he asked

953
00:59:43,278 –> 00:59:46,492
me, do you ever feel a need to go back to

954
00:59:46,546 –> 00:59:49,310
Africa? And I said, go back. To what?

955
00:59:50,000 –> 00:59:53,484
Like, I gotta ask an Irish person who’s like third

956
00:59:53,522 –> 00:59:57,170
generation Irish, do you feel a need to go back to Ireland? For what?

957
00:59:58,340 –> 01:00:01,712
For Guinness and to kiss a bridge? What are we doing here?

958
01:00:01,766 –> 01:00:05,250
Right? No, I was born here.

959
01:00:05,620 –> 01:00:09,456
This is the place. This

960
01:00:09,478 –> 01:00:13,190
is the Alamo, and this is it. This is the thing.

961
01:00:16,120 –> 01:00:19,832
This is the whole thing. I don’t know where else I where else

962
01:00:19,886 –> 01:00:22,984
I would there’s there’s no place else to go. This is this is the this

963
01:00:23,022 –> 01:00:26,330
is it. So I

964
01:00:27,500 –> 01:00:30,948
well, case in point. We’re

965
01:00:30,964 –> 01:00:34,792
gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna further peel the onion

966
01:00:34,856 –> 01:00:37,470
here with Tom a little bit on

967
01:00:38,720 –> 01:00:42,140
this issue of Native Americans.

968
01:00:43,360 –> 01:00:46,248
But we’re going to approach it from a little bit of a different angle. Because

969
01:00:46,274 –> 01:00:49,436
remember, I said it’s hard to root for the bad guys and it’s, it’s it’s

970
01:00:49,468 –> 01:00:52,610
hard to hard to say something nice about the other side.

971
01:00:53,220 –> 01:00:56,484
So we’re gonna go to the hardest possible person to say something nice

972
01:00:56,522 –> 01:01:00,148
about the friend of the show. Well, maybe not a friend of the

973
01:01:00,154 –> 01:01:03,856
show. He’s on a $20 bill. His name is Andrew

974
01:01:03,888 –> 01:01:07,588
Jackson. If you

975
01:01:07,594 –> 01:01:11,370
can’t see the video, tom is smiling unironically right now.

976
01:01:13,500 –> 01:01:16,328
Because after that entire thing that he just said, now I’m going to hit him

977
01:01:16,334 –> 01:01:20,164
with Andrew Jackson. So let’s go to the Gilder Lerman

978
01:01:20,212 –> 01:01:23,688
Institute of American History. I pulled

979
01:01:23,704 –> 01:01:27,420
this after some research. This is from the AP US.

980
01:01:27,490 –> 01:01:30,956
History study guide. So this is AP us history. This is

981
01:01:30,978 –> 01:01:34,290
what high school students are learning

982
01:01:35,140 –> 01:01:38,704
about Andrew Jackson. I pulled directly from their

983
01:01:38,742 –> 01:01:42,556
article. This is written by Matthew Warshaw, who is a professor

984
01:01:42,588 –> 01:01:46,236
of history at Central Connecticut State University and author

985
01:01:46,268 –> 01:01:50,064
of Andrew Jackson in Context, published in 2009. And Andrew Jackson

986
01:01:50,112 –> 01:01:53,396
in the politics of martial law, nationalism, civil liberties and

987
01:01:53,418 –> 01:01:56,496
partisanship. 2006. And I quote

988
01:01:56,528 –> 01:02:00,072
directly from Matthew Washer. In

989
01:02:00,126 –> 01:02:03,876
1860, biographer James Parton concluded that Andrew

990
01:02:03,908 –> 01:02:07,432
Jackson was, quote, a most law defying, law

991
01:02:07,486 –> 01:02:10,648
obeying citizen unquote. Such a statement is obviously

992
01:02:10,734 –> 01:02:14,504
contradictory, yet it accurately captures the essence of the famous or infamous

993
01:02:14,552 –> 01:02:18,184
Jackson. Without question, the 7th president was a man of contradictions.

994
01:02:18,312 –> 01:02:22,044
To this day, historians have been unable to arrive at accepted conclusions about his

995
01:02:22,082 –> 01:02:25,676
character or impact on the nation. Was he, as Robert Remini has

996
01:02:25,698 –> 01:02:29,388
argued across the pages of more than a dozen books, the Great Leader and Symbol

997
01:02:29,404 –> 01:02:32,608
of a Burgeoning mass Democracy? Or was Jackson merely a

998
01:02:32,614 –> 01:02:36,144
vainglorious bully with no vision for the nation, reacting in

999
01:02:36,182 –> 01:02:39,856
response to his own sensitive pride, as Andrew Burstein

1000
01:02:39,888 –> 01:02:43,716
and others have insisted? There is much that one

1001
01:02:43,738 –> 01:02:47,316
can look at in Jackson’s life when attempting to arrive at conclusions. In

1002
01:02:47,338 –> 01:02:50,772
particular, his relationship with the law and. Constitution offers significant

1003
01:02:50,916 –> 01:02:54,564
window into his worldview. Whether it was illegally declaring

1004
01:02:54,612 –> 01:02:57,828
martial law in New Orleans, invading Spanish Florida, and executing British

1005
01:02:57,844 –> 01:03:01,496
citizens, removing federal deposits from the bank of the United States, or questioning the

1006
01:03:01,518 –> 01:03:05,256
supreme court’s authority in Worceschester versus Georgia, jackson acted

1007
01:03:05,288 –> 01:03:09,036
in a manner that was at times distinctly illegal, yet widely hailed by supporters as

1008
01:03:09,058 –> 01:03:12,892
being in the nation’s best interest. And before we conclude that this support

1009
01:03:12,946 –> 01:03:15,808
was partisan banter bestowed by his own

1010
01:03:15,894 –> 01:03:19,536
Democratic Party, we must remember that historians and

1011
01:03:19,558 –> 01:03:23,388
legal scholars to this day have wrestled with the larger ideological and constitutional meaning

1012
01:03:23,404 –> 01:03:26,610
of Jackson’s beliefs and actions. One thing is certain

1013
01:03:27,220 –> 01:03:30,916
jackson had no qualms about overstepping the law, even the Constitution, when he

1014
01:03:30,938 –> 01:03:34,720
believed that the very survival of the nation required it. Moreover,

1015
01:03:34,800 –> 01:03:38,328
this perspective remains at the very heart of the debate. In a post

1016
01:03:38,414 –> 01:03:42,216
911 America, the essential question stands can a

1017
01:03:42,238 –> 01:03:45,880
leader violate the law in order to ultimately save

1018
01:03:45,950 –> 01:03:47,800
it and the nation?

1019
01:03:49,420 –> 01:03:53,096
Jackson’s ideological conviction about the flexible nature of the law and the

1020
01:03:53,118 –> 01:03:56,748
Constitution in the face of dangers confronting the still fledgling nation can be seen in

1021
01:03:56,754 –> 01:04:00,572
many subsequent Jacksonian battles. When President

1022
01:04:00,626 –> 01:04:04,156
Jackson confronted the bank of the United States in 1832, he did so with the

1023
01:04:04,178 –> 01:04:07,596
belief that it was a corrupt fiscal monster threatening the nation’s

1024
01:04:07,628 –> 01:04:11,344
economic security. He not only vetoed the bank’s recharter, which was within

1025
01:04:11,382 –> 01:04:14,972
his right as Chief executive, but went a step further by removing federal deposits

1026
01:04:15,036 –> 01:04:18,884
even after Congress had deemed them safe. Jackson transferred one

1027
01:04:18,922 –> 01:04:22,416
Secretary of the treasury and fired another in order to secure the deposit

1028
01:04:22,448 –> 01:04:26,292
removals. His actions were questionable, if not completely

1029
01:04:26,346 –> 01:04:30,056
illegal, and the Senate censured him by making a notion, a notation in

1030
01:04:30,078 –> 01:04:33,912
their journal. They didn’t attempt impeachment for lack of

1031
01:04:33,966 –> 01:04:37,476
support. Other legal conflicts surfaced.

1032
01:04:37,508 –> 01:04:40,936
Jackson allegedly defied the Supreme Court over Worcesterster versus

1033
01:04:40,968 –> 01:04:44,652
Georgia 1832, announcing, and

1034
01:04:44,706 –> 01:04:48,152
I quote, john Marshall has made his decision.

1035
01:04:48,296 –> 01:04:51,820
Now let him enforce it. Close quote.

1036
01:04:52,560 –> 01:04:55,724
The case revolved around Georgia’s attempt to apply state laws to Cherokee

1037
01:04:55,772 –> 01:04:59,296
lands. The court had ruled against Georgia’s authority to do so, and

1038
01:04:59,318 –> 01:05:02,412
Jackson, dedicated to Indian removal, allegedly challenged

1039
01:05:02,476 –> 01:05:06,096
Marshall. Although there was little evidence to support the above quotation, it

1040
01:05:06,118 –> 01:05:09,856
certainly sounds like Jackson. Nonetheless, the case required nothing of

1041
01:05:09,878 –> 01:05:13,728
Jackson and was ultimately settled out of court. The fact remained,

1042
01:05:13,744 –> 01:05:17,568
however, that in this case and in McCullough versus Maryland, 1819,

1043
01:05:17,664 –> 01:05:20,884
when it was ruled that the bank of the United States was in fact constitutional,

1044
01:05:21,012 –> 01:05:24,792
jackson challenged the court’s authority as the final arbiter. As

1045
01:05:24,846 –> 01:05:28,308
President, Jackson believed that his authority to deem what was constitutional

1046
01:05:28,404 –> 01:05:31,420
equaled the Supreme Courts

1047
01:05:36,560 –> 01:05:40,220
there’s a couple of core things in there, and

1048
01:05:40,290 –> 01:05:43,916
like I said, I’m poking tob on this a little bit. This may be the

1049
01:05:43,938 –> 01:05:47,490
first departure on the podcast that we have.

1050
01:05:50,660 –> 01:05:51,730
I think

1051
01:05:54,180 –> 01:05:57,970
Jackson was a flawed man, just like anybody else.

1052
01:05:59,620 –> 01:06:03,468
I think that he was a human being just like anybody else. I

1053
01:06:03,494 –> 01:06:06,276
think he had his good days, and I think he had his bad days, and

1054
01:06:06,298 –> 01:06:09,904
I think he probably had more bad days than good days. I also think that

1055
01:06:09,962 –> 01:06:13,592
he was a man of his time. He was not a man

1056
01:06:13,646 –> 01:06:17,096
of 2023. He was a man of the

1057
01:06:17,118 –> 01:06:18,520
19th century.

1058
01:06:21,260 –> 01:06:25,020
The core question here, which is raised in this piece

1059
01:06:25,090 –> 01:06:28,812
about Jackson, is can a leader violate the law in order to ultimately save

1060
01:06:28,866 –> 01:06:30,380
it? And the nation?

1061
01:06:32,480 –> 01:06:35,856
Does does a

1062
01:06:36,038 –> 01:06:39,740
does a does a president in our system, does the executive

1063
01:06:39,900 –> 01:06:43,744
have a right, or have the or should

1064
01:06:43,782 –> 01:06:46,944
the Executive have the temerity to

1065
01:06:47,062 –> 01:06:50,836
tell the Supreme Court where to go if

1066
01:06:50,858 –> 01:06:53,590
they don’t want to do something?

1067
01:06:54,680 –> 01:06:58,176
We haven’t never resolved this tension. And to Tom’s

1068
01:06:58,208 –> 01:07:01,888
point, the issues that were brought up in Worcesterster v.

1069
01:07:01,914 –> 01:07:05,736
Georgia that specifically related to Georgia’s attempt to apply state law

1070
01:07:05,758 –> 01:07:09,160
to Cherokee Lance could have been resolved by presidents before

1071
01:07:09,310 –> 01:07:12,868
Jackson. But the can was kicked down the road

1072
01:07:13,054 –> 01:07:16,440
until it eventually met an immovable

1073
01:07:16,520 –> 01:07:20,350
object known as Andrew Jackson’s. Will

1074
01:07:22,320 –> 01:07:25,580
we live under the Constitution? We don’t live under a monarchy,

1075
01:07:26,020 –> 01:07:29,756
but sometimes we have leaders who behave as if they were monarchs, from mayors

1076
01:07:29,788 –> 01:07:32,240
and governors to legislators and presidents.

1077
01:07:34,900 –> 01:07:38,516
The civil magistrate under the Republican form of government has the right to

1078
01:07:38,538 –> 01:07:42,356
choose to ignore the leader, follow the leader, or even, in the

1079
01:07:42,378 –> 01:07:46,180
case of the south, rebel against the leader.

1080
01:07:49,960 –> 01:07:53,656
I’m not going to ask Tom, what should we

1081
01:07:53,678 –> 01:07:57,050
think about Jackson? I think he’s going to tell us that anyway.

1082
01:07:58,060 –> 01:08:00,970
Instead, what I’m going to do is ask Tom,

1083
01:08:02,320 –> 01:08:05,500
how do you put a leader, like, in the Jacksonian

1084
01:08:05,920 –> 01:08:08,910
mold? How do you keep him in the box?

1085
01:08:09,920 –> 01:08:11,870
How do you wrangle that guy?

1086
01:08:14,400 –> 01:08:18,124
Because you talked about well, talked about the chiefs. Right. I

1087
01:08:18,162 –> 01:08:20,128
want to go back to this. I want to draw the parallel. Right. So you

1088
01:08:20,134 –> 01:08:23,776
talked about how the Founding Fathers borrow the idea of a tripart government

1089
01:08:23,958 –> 01:08:26,930
from Native American culture. Okay.

1090
01:08:27,540 –> 01:08:29,970
How often did those chieftain women

1091
01:08:31,460 –> 01:08:34,960
run across a chief who was just like, yeah, that’s cute?

1092
01:08:39,740 –> 01:08:43,296
I think you have to talk about some foundational things first. Right. So

1093
01:08:43,398 –> 01:08:45,970
again, you’re talking

1094
01:08:46,580 –> 01:08:49,968
1870 ish 70

1095
01:08:50,054 –> 01:08:53,876
somewhere around there? 75. When

1096
01:08:53,898 –> 01:08:57,568
Franklin took his Cohorts up to the Honda

1097
01:08:57,584 –> 01:09:01,236
Shoney people, the Salagi down in the

1098
01:09:01,258 –> 01:09:04,980
Carolinas in Georgia, you’re talking 50 plus

1099
01:09:05,050 –> 01:09:08,456
years later. I think there’s some things you need

1100
01:09:08,478 –> 01:09:12,200
to have your listeners understand

1101
01:09:12,350 –> 01:09:15,944
if they don’t already, about that environment down

1102
01:09:15,982 –> 01:09:19,352
there. Right. Number one, which was so

1103
01:09:19,406 –> 01:09:23,164
Jackson was first elected in 1929 sorry,

1104
01:09:23,202 –> 01:09:27,052
18 1829. Right. 1829 to 1837.

1105
01:09:27,106 –> 01:09:30,844
I believe he served two terms. So in 1829, his

1106
01:09:30,882 –> 01:09:34,464
first course of action was not to go right

1107
01:09:34,502 –> 01:09:38,208
after them. Right, right. His first course of action, believe it or not, was

1108
01:09:38,374 –> 01:09:42,012
relatively civil by comparison. He essentially

1109
01:09:42,156 –> 01:09:45,636
dissected the Cherokee of the Salehi people

1110
01:09:45,818 –> 01:09:49,600
into four essential chief hoods

1111
01:09:49,760 –> 01:09:53,028
and then convinced the chiefs of those four

1112
01:09:53,194 –> 01:09:56,904
that their old ways weren’t good enough, that they needed to

1113
01:09:56,942 –> 01:10:00,456
act more like the government they were dealing with, so

1114
01:10:00,478 –> 01:10:02,680
that they were in principle.

1115
01:10:04,380 –> 01:10:08,104
They. Were basically led to believe that they could not operate that way

1116
01:10:08,142 –> 01:10:11,668
anymore. Okay, then

1117
01:10:11,774 –> 01:10:15,244
they were convinced that the whole concept of land

1118
01:10:15,282 –> 01:10:19,064
ownership again, you got to remember, natives didn’t have the same concept of land ownership

1119
01:10:19,112 –> 01:10:22,750
until they did. And Jackson was the one who really

1120
01:10:23,360 –> 01:10:26,952
pushed that onto the sale

1121
01:10:27,016 –> 01:10:30,336
people. Well, it wasn’t just the sale, too, by the way. It was

1122
01:10:30,358 –> 01:10:33,808
choctaw. And there was a couple of other tribal affiliations that were in there. So

1123
01:10:33,814 –> 01:10:36,790
I don’t want to exclude them, especially if any of my

1124
01:10:37,880 –> 01:10:41,364
brethren and arms are of those nations. So I do

1125
01:10:41,402 –> 01:10:45,252
recognize it was not just the Selagi, so please forgive that part. But anyway but

1126
01:10:45,306 –> 01:10:48,696
this particular case was specifically the Selagi that they

1127
01:10:48,718 –> 01:10:51,880
divided into these four chiefs. Chiefhoods

1128
01:10:52,860 –> 01:10:56,600
Jackson convinced three of those chiefs to basically

1129
01:10:56,750 –> 01:11:00,270
just give up and sell them the land and become

1130
01:11:01,520 –> 01:11:05,196
part of the Cog and all that other stuff.

1131
01:11:05,378 –> 01:11:09,068
That’s part of what Worcester v. Georgia was about.

1132
01:11:09,154 –> 01:11:12,428
Not all of it, but part of it, which was, we should not have

1133
01:11:12,514 –> 01:11:16,252
enforced this land ownership on them, and we’re basically forcing

1134
01:11:16,316 –> 01:11:19,776
our ways and thoughts onto them. And Jackson was like,

1135
01:11:19,798 –> 01:11:23,648
well, this is the way we’re doing it because this is now part of the

1136
01:11:23,654 –> 01:11:26,896
United States. Because if you remember, at that time, they had already moved a little

1137
01:11:26,918 –> 01:11:30,768
bit westward. It was like

1138
01:11:30,854 –> 01:11:34,608
assimilate or die kind of mentality. But

1139
01:11:34,694 –> 01:11:38,504
Jackson didn’t present it that way. Right. Jackson presented it in a way that

1140
01:11:38,542 –> 01:11:42,168
said, we’re going to make them feel like they’re part of us, and then we’re

1141
01:11:42,174 –> 01:11:44,868
going to push them out because we’re going to just take the land and we’re

1142
01:11:44,884 –> 01:11:47,396
going to give them fair market value. We’re going to do the whole eminent domain

1143
01:11:47,428 –> 01:11:50,708
thing. And there was all this it was

1144
01:11:50,894 –> 01:11:54,716
like a Monopoly chessboard. It was like Monopoly, but not like

1145
01:11:54,738 –> 01:11:58,316
there was not payment, but not so now the

1146
01:11:58,338 –> 01:12:02,024
Salagh are split today into two bands. You have the Western

1147
01:12:02,072 –> 01:12:05,816
Band Cherokee that are in Oklahoma. That’s where the Removal

1148
01:12:05,848 –> 01:12:09,628
Act was putting them. But you have the Eastern Band Cherokee that stayed in North

1149
01:12:09,644 –> 01:12:13,056
Carolina. They basically said, you want us, come get us. You want to take us

1150
01:12:13,078 –> 01:12:16,256
off our land, you come get us off our they pulled an Andrew Jackson on

1151
01:12:16,278 –> 01:12:19,588
him. They said, yeah, that’s all well and good that you think you want to

1152
01:12:19,594 –> 01:12:23,204
do this now? Come get us. And he just couldn’t he couldn’t muster the

1153
01:12:23,242 –> 01:12:26,180
support, the strength, the physical

1154
01:12:26,760 –> 01:12:30,352
ineptitude that it would have taken to remove them from the hills of North Carolina

1155
01:12:30,416 –> 01:12:34,216
because, well, let’s face it, they knew the hills better than they did.

1156
01:12:34,318 –> 01:12:36,456
They were never going to catch them. They were never going to grab them, move

1157
01:12:36,478 –> 01:12:39,864
them, whatever. So they just gave up after a certain amount of time, I believe

1158
01:12:39,902 –> 01:12:42,860
it was 1850, where they just said, forget it, we’re just going to leave them

1159
01:12:42,930 –> 01:12:46,524
be where they were, which is essentially when that whole

1160
01:12:46,562 –> 01:12:50,364
trilaters movement ended, was 1850. Right. So it went

1161
01:12:50,402 –> 01:12:54,252
from it signed 1830. It was

1162
01:12:54,306 –> 01:12:57,650
not really enforced for a few years because of all the

1163
01:12:58,020 –> 01:13:01,436
back and forth in courts and all that stuff. And that whole settlement, quote, unquote,

1164
01:13:01,468 –> 01:13:05,136
out of court, that was the settlement that I’m talking about, where they

1165
01:13:05,158 –> 01:13:08,944
just basically convinced the other three chiefs that you own this land now,

1166
01:13:08,982 –> 01:13:11,728
and we want to buy it from you. There’s this thing called eminent domain, so

1167
01:13:11,734 –> 01:13:13,936
you don’t have a choice, but we’re going to try to give you and by

1168
01:13:13,958 –> 01:13:17,496
the way, we’re going to give you the same equity land out in a nice

1169
01:13:17,598 –> 01:13:21,304
neighborhood out in Oklahoma. I know you haven’t seen it, but trust us, it’s really

1170
01:13:21,342 –> 01:13:23,320
nice. It’s Oklahoma.

1171
01:13:27,020 –> 01:13:29,564
I don’t want to knock any listers from Oklahoma, by the way. It’s a fine

1172
01:13:29,602 –> 01:13:33,260
state. It’s fine. Oh, yeah. No, I liked right.

1173
01:13:33,330 –> 01:13:36,972
I lived in Nebraska for a while, not Oklahoma, but to me, they’re never

1174
01:13:37,026 –> 01:13:40,636
mind. Anyway. We’Ve already

1175
01:13:40,658 –> 01:13:44,476
irritated enough people. But

1176
01:13:44,498 –> 01:13:47,388
then in the same breath, they were like, oh, and by the way, we’re going

1177
01:13:47,394 –> 01:13:50,224
to pick up some of your brethren on the way. So it’s not just you.

1178
01:13:50,262 –> 01:13:52,464
We’re going to take the whole lot of you and we’re going to give you

1179
01:13:52,502 –> 01:13:56,064
your own. This is going to be yours. He just

1180
01:13:56,102 –> 01:13:58,370
basically bullied them into it, but

1181
01:14:00,500 –> 01:14:04,256
that’s what the settlement was. So he

1182
01:14:04,278 –> 01:14:07,496
wanted John Marshall to go ahead, and you said this was

1183
01:14:07,518 –> 01:14:11,256
unconstitutional. Good luck to you to try to stop me from doing

1184
01:14:11,278 –> 01:14:13,608
it anyway, because he knew he was going to do it. He knew he was

1185
01:14:13,614 –> 01:14:16,008
going to be able to do it. He knew he was going to succeed in

1186
01:14:16,014 –> 01:14:19,256
it. The part that I have a problem with, too, and we could talk about

1187
01:14:19,278 –> 01:14:22,250
Jackson Moore or whatever, but I still have a problem with

1188
01:14:23,040 –> 01:14:26,572
the guy who comes after him, has an opportunity to

1189
01:14:26,626 –> 01:14:30,172
stop this nonsense because John Marshall already said it was not

1190
01:14:30,226 –> 01:14:33,964
constitutional, and he didn’t. So Martin Van Buren just said,

1191
01:14:34,002 –> 01:14:36,140
I’m just going to go with it. I was going to go with the flow.

1192
01:14:36,300 –> 01:14:40,016
I’m just going to let it happen. It’s already in process, so

1193
01:14:40,038 –> 01:14:43,564
there’s no point in stopping it. Right. So this is

1194
01:14:43,702 –> 01:14:47,270
leaders do this all the time, though. You get a really strong

1195
01:14:48,040 –> 01:14:51,604
personality. I’ve read some things about

1196
01:14:51,642 –> 01:14:55,110
Jackson not deeply, but I’ve read some things about him.

1197
01:14:56,380 –> 01:14:59,130
Guy was, I mean,

1198
01:15:01,100 –> 01:15:04,776
well, let me put it to you this way. He was the

1199
01:15:04,798 –> 01:15:08,170
kind of guy who would duel on a regular basis. Yeah.

1200
01:15:08,620 –> 01:15:11,720
And he had no problem shooting another dude in the street.

1201
01:15:12,880 –> 01:15:16,684
He was just going to take you out. Right. And I think

1202
01:15:16,722 –> 01:15:20,110
people, even of his time underestimated how much of a

1203
01:15:20,560 –> 01:15:24,064
I believe the modern term would be thug, how much of a thug he really

1204
01:15:24,102 –> 01:15:27,744
was. And it’s sort of this

1205
01:15:27,782 –> 01:15:30,960
dynamic of, oh, gosh,

1206
01:15:32,660 –> 01:15:36,244
this is a long way around, but it doesn’t matter. I was reading a review

1207
01:15:36,282 –> 01:15:40,096
of Charles not a review, but I was reading

1208
01:15:40,128 –> 01:15:43,808
the biography, a biographical sketch that was written about an author named

1209
01:15:43,824 –> 01:15:47,204
Charles Portis who wrote the book True

1210
01:15:47,242 –> 01:15:50,740
Grit back in the day. And he just recently

1211
01:15:50,820 –> 01:15:53,832
passed away. And the person was

1212
01:15:53,886 –> 01:15:57,192
describing I got to look it up and find it. But the person was

1213
01:15:57,246 –> 01:16:00,984
describing the character Maddie

1214
01:16:01,032 –> 01:16:04,556
Ross in True Grit. And the way that

1215
01:16:04,578 –> 01:16:06,540
Maddie Ross was described

1216
01:16:08,560 –> 01:16:11,688
in the article and I’ll bring it up here in just a minute kind of

1217
01:16:11,714 –> 01:16:14,912
relates to Andrew Jackson. Like, occasionally you will have

1218
01:16:14,966 –> 01:16:18,736
leaders, I think about leaders in fiction, right.

1219
01:16:18,838 –> 01:16:22,368
Most notably, maybe the leader in the father in the show

1220
01:16:22,454 –> 01:16:25,744
Secession. Right. Which is really just King Lear, but in reverse.

1221
01:16:25,792 –> 01:16:29,156
Right. You’ll have those leaders who

1222
01:16:29,178 –> 01:16:30,870
are just. So.

1223
01:16:42,280 –> 01:16:46,016
Morally single minded. I’ll frame it that way. That’s

1224
01:16:46,048 –> 01:16:48,870
kind of the best way to sort of think about it, right?

1225
01:16:51,080 –> 01:16:53,190
Morally single minded. Yeah.

1226
01:16:57,020 –> 01:17:00,090
You get a person like Jackson who comes along

1227
01:17:00,700 –> 01:17:04,484
and here’s the quote. I wanted to get it. It’s from the Point magazine.

1228
01:17:04,532 –> 01:17:08,196
It’s called old Weird America. I was just reading it. The thing about Charles

1229
01:17:08,228 –> 01:17:11,836
Porter basically or try not Charles Porter, sorry, Charles Portiss, the

1230
01:17:11,858 –> 01:17:15,384
author of True Grit, basically saying that he could never have had a career

1231
01:17:15,432 –> 01:17:18,780
now because we don’t like weird things like everything to be commodified and

1232
01:17:18,850 –> 01:17:22,556
corporatized. But the line in here that’s really genuine,

1233
01:17:22,588 –> 01:17:26,336
that applies to Andrew Jackson is this and

1234
01:17:26,358 –> 01:17:30,176
he’s describing Maddie Ross. He says, Maddie is an irresistible force in a

1235
01:17:30,198 –> 01:17:33,780
world of pushovers who have mistaken themselves for removable objects.

1236
01:17:35,240 –> 01:17:38,660
Okay, that’s a great line. That is a great line.

1237
01:17:38,730 –> 01:17:42,176
And you think about it, that’s

1238
01:17:42,208 –> 01:17:45,968
Jackson. Like, we tend to think of people in

1239
01:17:45,994 –> 01:17:49,560
the early 19th century in America as being rough and ready and

1240
01:17:49,710 –> 01:17:53,064
pilgrim. But there were just as many weak people and

1241
01:17:53,102 –> 01:17:56,904
pushovers there as then as there are now. And Jackson

1242
01:17:56,952 –> 01:18:00,476
just realized that he was in a world full of

1243
01:18:00,498 –> 01:18:04,204
pushovers for his time. And they

1244
01:18:04,242 –> 01:18:08,076
think that they’re removable objects like the Supreme Court. He

1245
01:18:08,098 –> 01:18:11,520
looked in Marshall’s face and he took his measure and he found him wanting.

1246
01:18:12,820 –> 01:18:16,240
He just did. And I think he did that to a lot of folks.

1247
01:18:16,580 –> 01:18:20,416
But you do have strong leaders that are like that. Usually it’s the

1248
01:18:20,438 –> 01:18:24,036
founder, right? The Steve Jobs type or even the Bill

1249
01:18:24,058 –> 01:18:27,030
Gates type. But then the guy who comes in behind you,

1250
01:18:28,120 –> 01:18:31,620
what’s his name? Balmer and Microsoft

1251
01:18:32,120 –> 01:18:35,832
or Tim Cook winds up not

1252
01:18:35,966 –> 01:18:39,732
being that person. And so you saw that in the transition

1253
01:18:39,796 –> 01:18:43,464
from Jackson to Van Buren. But

1254
01:18:43,502 –> 01:18:46,904
that does get me back to my original thought, which thank you for providing the

1255
01:18:46,942 –> 01:18:50,668
context for our listeners on the Trail of Tears, and we’ll discuss more of

1256
01:18:50,674 –> 01:18:53,516
this when we talk about burying My Heart at Wounded Knee. We’re going to get

1257
01:18:53,538 –> 01:18:57,228
into that in the upcoming months on the

1258
01:18:57,234 –> 01:19:00,716
podcast. We’re going to read that a little bit further down the

1259
01:19:00,738 –> 01:19:04,464
line because I really do want to delve into that very deeply and pull

1260
01:19:04,502 –> 01:19:07,968
some of that apart, because I do think there’s valuable lessons for leaders in there.

1261
01:19:08,054 –> 01:19:11,590
Plus, it’s just history that doesn’t get talked about nearly often enough.

1262
01:19:14,760 –> 01:19:18,192
How do you keep a guy like that, who’s that irresistible

1263
01:19:18,256 –> 01:19:21,956
force, how do you build struck if they’re not even

1264
01:19:21,978 –> 01:19:25,796
going to pay attention to the word, right? If you’ve got chiefs who are just

1265
01:19:25,818 –> 01:19:28,888
not even going to pay attention to the old ladies, what would happen if a

1266
01:19:28,894 –> 01:19:31,080
chief didn’t pay attention to any of the old ladies?

1267
01:19:32,540 –> 01:19:36,328
How are they going to move him? Well, that’s a

1268
01:19:36,334 –> 01:19:39,736
grown man. How are you going to move that grown man? Are you going to

1269
01:19:39,742 –> 01:19:43,468
get go, other grown men to move that grown man out? Essentially, yeah.

1270
01:19:43,634 –> 01:19:47,468
Okay. All right. You got to

1271
01:19:47,474 –> 01:19:50,704
remember, too, we were a matriarchal society to begin with, right?

1272
01:19:50,742 –> 01:19:54,370
So that chief would not have argued that.

1273
01:19:57,620 –> 01:20:01,396
I’m not suggesting that there was nobody who thought of themselves as

1274
01:20:01,418 –> 01:20:04,310
an immovable force, but

1275
01:20:06,360 –> 01:20:09,556
that version of a check and balance was

1276
01:20:09,658 –> 01:20:12,390
legit. Because think about this, right?

1277
01:20:13,720 –> 01:20:17,268
The women that are coming to you are your wife’s

1278
01:20:17,364 –> 01:20:20,920
mother’s or your wife’s mother, your wife’s aunt,

1279
01:20:21,660 –> 01:20:25,050
you have to go to sleep sometime. You’re sleeping in the same bed as this.

1280
01:20:25,420 –> 01:20:29,144
I’m sorry, but I’m only going to push

1281
01:20:29,192 –> 01:20:32,750
so far with that scenario because I want to wake up the next morning.

1282
01:20:34,720 –> 01:20:37,550
I don’t want to wake up saying, a two brute, whatever,

1283
01:20:38,020 –> 01:20:41,696
right? Which, by the way, Julius Caesar’s wife did try to keep him from

1284
01:20:41,718 –> 01:20:45,488
going to heading on

1285
01:20:45,494 –> 01:20:48,930
down to the Senate there. She knew.

1286
01:20:49,940 –> 01:20:50,930
But anyway.

1287
01:20:54,280 –> 01:20:58,116
Plus the other thing, too, that I think that we take for

1288
01:20:58,138 –> 01:21:01,796
granted sometimes I see this a

1289
01:21:01,818 –> 01:21:05,496
lot, especially in court, right? So you see

1290
01:21:05,518 –> 01:21:09,176
this in court all the time. You have opposing counsel, right? You have these

1291
01:21:09,198 –> 01:21:12,730
two people. They’re on opposite sides of this fight.

1292
01:21:14,940 –> 01:21:18,504
Not to get too personal, but I’ve been through a divorce, so I’m speaking from

1293
01:21:18,542 –> 01:21:22,316
experience here. My divorce attorney, I want them to hate that

1294
01:21:22,338 –> 01:21:25,068
other divorce attorney. I want them to try to win. I want them try to

1295
01:21:25,074 –> 01:21:28,604
fight. And then I go outside and I see them going out for a drink,

1296
01:21:28,652 –> 01:21:30,610
and they’re hanging out, and I’m like, what the hell,

1297
01:21:32,020 –> 01:21:35,410
right? So

1298
01:21:36,580 –> 01:21:40,336
there’s a weird dynamic that happens in our courtrooms and in our Senate, in

1299
01:21:40,358 –> 01:21:43,916
our House, where they’ll battle each other. They’ll

1300
01:21:43,948 –> 01:21:47,028
throw stones at each other. And I swear to God, once those doors close and

1301
01:21:47,034 –> 01:21:49,750
the public isn’t looking, they’re all chumming it up

1302
01:21:51,400 –> 01:21:55,216
because they have to put on a show of something for their constituents,

1303
01:21:55,248 –> 01:21:58,756
but I just really get the feeling they don’t care about us as much as

1304
01:21:58,778 –> 01:22:02,596
we think they do or we want them to. And I think that’s kind of

1305
01:22:02,618 –> 01:22:06,284
back to your point. It was harder to see at back then,

1306
01:22:06,322 –> 01:22:10,156
right? So Andrew Jackson gets elected president, and he’s like, Finally, I made it.

1307
01:22:10,258 –> 01:22:13,468
Hey, look, my I made it, right? Like I’m here now. No one’s going to

1308
01:22:13,474 –> 01:22:15,308
knock me down because I’m just going to do whatever I want. And I don’t

1309
01:22:15,314 –> 01:22:18,750
care what the public sees, because quite honestly, we don’t see anything back then.

1310
01:22:19,600 –> 01:22:23,250
Took us six months to get a letter to California, whatever.

1311
01:22:24,020 –> 01:22:27,680
Whereas today’s, day and age, we think it’s a little different.

1312
01:22:27,830 –> 01:22:31,120
We think it’s a little different because the age of social media, access to information

1313
01:22:31,190 –> 01:22:34,988
so much faster. But quite honestly, I still don’t think they care.

1314
01:22:35,094 –> 01:22:37,588
I don’t think they care as much as we think they do or as much

1315
01:22:37,594 –> 01:22:41,444
as we want them to. Well, and that’s the separation between the

1316
01:22:41,482 –> 01:22:44,840
politics of leadership and the

1317
01:22:44,910 –> 01:22:48,568
actual act of leading. Yes.

1318
01:22:48,654 –> 01:22:52,424
Right. Those are two separate things, which also must be separated from

1319
01:22:52,462 –> 01:22:55,540
a third thing, which is the act of making

1320
01:22:55,710 –> 01:22:59,292
law. And we mix those

1321
01:22:59,346 –> 01:23:03,192
three things up together and we think that those three things are removable

1322
01:23:03,256 –> 01:23:06,908
objects. I’m going to close

1323
01:23:07,074 –> 01:23:10,844
or maybe put the ellipsis on this episode, because

1324
01:23:10,962 –> 01:23:13,568
we’re at the end here. I’m going to put an ellipsis on this episode. I’m

1325
01:23:13,574 –> 01:23:15,410
going to put three dots at the end,

1326
01:23:17,220 –> 01:23:20,780
and in going towards those three dots, I’m going to quote from

1327
01:23:20,870 –> 01:23:24,628
Proverbs 23. Some wisdom, by the way, from one of the

1328
01:23:24,634 –> 01:23:26,740
wisdom books in the Bible.

1329
01:23:28,520 –> 01:23:32,308
23 one, actually. When you when thou I

1330
01:23:32,314 –> 01:23:35,608
love the thou’s, when thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider

1331
01:23:35,694 –> 01:23:39,448
diligently what is before thee and put a

1332
01:23:39,454 –> 01:23:43,304
knife to thy throat. If thou be a man given to appetite, be

1333
01:23:43,342 –> 01:23:47,180
not desirous of his dainties, for they are deceitful meat.

1334
01:23:48,240 –> 01:23:51,644
I think that’s pretty good advice. And then

1335
01:23:51,682 –> 01:23:55,420
Proverbs 24, verse one, be not

1336
01:23:55,490 –> 01:23:59,296
thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them, for their

1337
01:23:59,318 –> 01:24:02,560
heart studyth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief.

1338
01:24:06,420 –> 01:24:08,880
I think that’s a good place to put the Ellipsis.

1339
01:24:10,980 –> 01:24:14,150
I want to thank Tom for coming on our episode today.

1340
01:24:14,680 –> 01:24:18,116
Coming back to our episode today. Hopefully we’ll see him next

1341
01:24:18,138 –> 01:24:21,876
month. Going to go offline, see if we’ve driven him

1342
01:24:21,898 –> 01:24:24,230
off. Nah, he’ll be back next month.

1343
01:24:26,040 –> 01:24:29,776
We’ll be getting into more of some of the topics that we’ve discussed

1344
01:24:29,808 –> 01:24:33,524
here. The role of the civil magistrate, the role of the Constitution and

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01:24:33,562 –> 01:24:36,844
leadership. And what is all this mean for

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01:24:36,882 –> 01:24:40,588
people in the midst of our third turning, I

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01:24:40,594 –> 01:24:43,484
think, amidst the beginning of something that’s happening in

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01:24:43,522 –> 01:24:47,340
America. Once again, thank you, everybody,

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for listening to the leadership lessons from the Great Books podcast. With

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01:24:51,042 –> 01:24:54,270
that, we’re out.