Left Of Greg 092 The Future of the First Amendment

Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. I'm Brian, I'm the host of The Human Behavior Podcast. You're going to be watching the video version of our audio podcast. Please, guys, if you like the video, like it, subscribe to the channel. There's going to be more content on there if you're already a subscriber, and a better way for us to get you guys some more stuff. If you have any questions or comments, go ahead, leave them below. Check out our links down below to get a hold of us and to actually find out more places where you can get more information about this. Please like and subscribe, follow us on Facebook at HBPRNA. Remember, all these cases that we discuss and all these discussions that we have are through the lenses of what we call human behavior pattern recognition and analysis. So please like it, share it, tell your friends about it, and we hope you enjoy the show.

It changes a bit much, but I think we are farmers, live on farmersonly.com. So I will be seeing the farming side of the family here shortly, in a few days. I'm excited about that, haven't been up to the farm in a long time. So Greg, we will go ahead and get started today. For those of you just listening, I guess that was our intro on Facebook Live because we're streaming live, so you can always follow me if you want to.

But thank you for tuning in. Today we're talking about a number of topics, but the overall theme is kind of about the First Amendment and rights underneath it—where it's going, different examples we've seen, and some of the ones that kind of spurred up from actually just the article you sent me that just came out a couple of days ago, or just in the last couple of days, from down in Louisville. It was a police major (referenced in the episode title as Major Hallahan), and I guess, I'm sorry, I already forgot if her email internally sent out an internal email to other police officers in the department regarding current operations with dealing with protesters, dealing with civil unrest, also kind of as a leadership, "Hey, this is what's going on." And I guess it was somehow leaked, but what happened is she's being relieved of command.

It's interesting because I read through what she said, and she referred Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters as "punks" and, especially the ones she said "who jumped on the bandwagon yesterday because they became woke," but she said "do not deserve a second glance or thought from us." So real quick, the word she's using, I guess maybe might have been offensive in like 1940 or something, but it doesn't seem like it would be today. So I was kind of interested by the language, but what she was doing, in my perspective, the way I took it, is that she kind of downplayed who these people were, meaning protesters—well, what everyone's calling protesters, which generally have been turning into riots and looting. But what she said was pointing out that there are issues where these protesters are doxing different police officers, putting out their information about where they live and personal information. And what she was reassuring her officers was, "Hey, we're taking care of this. We've had some incidences. I hope we don't have to do it." And she said, "Just know I got your back." Which is really good. It kind of dovetails into the webinar we just did about "Writing for the Brand and Leadership" and what that message is, because she's kind of given the competence and the confidence in her police officers. Going like, "Look, we're a united front, we're in this together. There's a lot going on right now."

And the blowback on this was, I think, disproportionate to her words and to what she said, and to what the overall message was, because she in fact in there said, you know, basically told them the officers, "Look, one, you can come in and talk to me at any time. I got an open door." So that's good for communication, that's good open and honest communication between leaders and subordinates, which is needed in any police department like this. And she said, "Hey, don't engage them." She basically was kind of just saying, "Hey, don't get wrapped up in this. Don't get emotionally involved. Don't get caught up in what someone says. You're better than that. We're better than that." And said, "Let the Public Information Officer handle the truth and get that information out there." So she not only said, "Hey, I've got your back. Look, times are tough. We're dealing with a lot of stuff." But she also said, "Stay in your lane." Like, "You are not." Like she said, "Let the people whose job it is to handle getting the right message out, let them do that. You focus on what you have to do." So to me, coming from it, I was like, "Hey, this, in terms of an internal email, I would ask anyone who read this and got upset by it, like, go through your internal emails between your friends or your co-workers. You tell me there's something in there that you wouldn't want someone from the outside seeing and going, 'Hey, what did you say right here?'" Because nothing in here rose to that level. She didn't slander anyone, she didn't use any derogatory terms. I mean, I guess she called them "punks." That's like, I don't, I don't know if like, well, she used the term "Black Lives Matter" and she's not, in fact, Black. I mean, if you want to draw straws, how far are we going to go?

Yeah, it's an internal memo, and somebody sent an internal memo up the chain of command, or the chain of command routinely reviews them, and they chose—and I'm going to use the term again that's going to get me in a trick bag—they chose to crucify this female major and ended her career for her words.

Yeah, and you know what? She's, I mean, reading the actual words in it are incredible. She said, "What we can do is speak up against them and put the truth out there through the PIO (Public Information Office) and the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department Facebook page. We will come back at them on their own page to let them and everyone else know they are lying. We will print the facts. I will see to it." So, I mean, this isn't like, hey, I don't, I'm shocked. Well, I'm not shocked that she was reprimanded for this. I'm, it's sad that things have gotten this, but it goes into the overall theme of, you know, what's protected, what is free speech, what can someone say, what can't someone say? Because in what people are calling "cancel culture," which again, all this stuff, when you get into stuff like political correctness and cancel culture and victim culture that people talk about, you've got to remember, all of those things started from something really good, right? Meaning it was there to go, "Hey, you can't say these things because that's blatantly racist," or, "You can't treat someone this way. We want to hear a victim's story because people are being victimized and feel that they don't have the power to speak out."

But once that ball starts rolling, which might be a really good thing at first, their second and third order effects, if that doesn't slow down or that continues with momentum, well, eventually we've got to keep looking for something, right? We have to keep, "Well, I've got to find another person that said something inappropriate and then I've got to find another person." Now that line starts to drift to what's okay and what isn't okay, and now suddenly we are stepping on someone's First Amendment rights, right? I have the right to think and believe. The law is clearly defined on what I can and cannot say, what I can do, and what I cannot do. So words are becoming... I'm okay with even bad language or civil discourse or people being angry and saying things because if you're talking, you're not fighting. So if you're communicating in some way, and we have this idea that, "Well, you can't say that because it makes me feel that way." And it's like, "Well, you weren't involved. You weren't on the email chain, first of all, in this case. You had no part in this, you don't play a role in this. This is internal to our organization."

Yes, it's funded by the public. It has public oversight, it is part of the government, so it's a little bit different, right, Greg? So I'm not trying to oversimplify.

No, no, no, no. But I want to get to the street context, right? So you said context. Let's take it to the street and establish some context so people know which directions we're going and we don't pull the rug out from under them immediately. One, we absolutely love Louisville, Kentucky.

Oh yeah, I've been there a number of times. We showed up to The Brown Hotel.

Exactly. We also love their police department who we work closely with a number of times. We love Kindred Health, shout out to those wonderful folks that are in Louisville. Brian, I apologize for not remembering the female major's name (Major Hallahan, per episode title). But I want to put things in context here. For her to be a female in police work and be a major of that agency, that means that she has considerable time on the ground.

Yeah.

And that she was a mover and a shaker. That's one thing that we have to remember. Second thing is, let me ask you, if this was an internal memo that she sent out to a number of participants, okay, those people that were included in that memo, I want to ask you a question: How do you think they feel today about "overhead cover"? And I'd like you to give a definition of what that means. How do you think today they feel about trust in their agency and their ability to speak up? So before we delve into the science behind this and the legal, Brian, let's address that. One, she's been there an awfully long time. It was a motivational speech intended to be written down and sent to a broad target because she couldn't meet everybody individually. Right? It's a police department that's got three shifts and special units and all this other stuff. Let's talk about that for a minute. Overhead cover, what is it? And is the trust forever irrevocably broken in Louisville?

Okay. So, you know, the overhead cover is just something that if I'm working for an organization—it doesn't have to be a police department, be a private company, whatever—I'm the gate agent for Delta Airlines. I have to sometimes enforce company policies and I don't get to write those policies. I don't get to have a say in what they are. But I can choose...

Exactly.

I'm at the end of the chain on that, so I have to be the one to enforce that. So if you want to empower, empowering your employee, I don't care what the organization is, is giving them that top cover. So what she did is saying, "Hey, look, here's, I have your back. One, you, this is something we're dealing with. I know you're scared, I know this is going on." She's doing that. "You're doing a great job. We're going to deal with this. We're going to deal with this the right way. We're going to do this through the established processes that have been put in place. We have a Public Information Office. They will be the ones who will put out information. You will do your job, you will not go outside what you are allowed to do." Like, this was a "I have your back, you stay in your lane, let us handle this, you focus on what you have to do. Hey, you got any problems, walk in my room and talk, come see me." This is exactly what leadership is supposed to do. This is what it looks like. And this is an internal email. This isn't, she didn't post this on Facebook, she didn't make some stupid comment somewhere. This was an internal email to the people she's directly in charge of.

You want, I read that email, I go, "Oh, all right, you know what, [ __ ] I'm stressed, and there's a lot going on, and I hate dealing with these people, and it's a pain in the ass, and I don't even, I didn't even get the level of training that's required to handle these situations, but I still got to go out there and do it every day. But you know what? The major's got my back and we're good. Like, we're going to get through this." And then now the next day is competency. Now the next day, she's fired for that. So you're like, that's pulling the rug out from under them. That completely, you want to talk about breaking down the police force in one single action, you just did it.

Yeah. I mean, what do you think the consequences of this? So you reacted with a hammer to a mosquito and now that welp and that bruise is available for everybody to see. You sent a sniper to shoot the person threatening suicide, and now you have to reap the whirlwind. So what we have to understand, first of all, is that there's a different legal standard for an agency because the agency might have an express policy saying, "Thou shalt not ever send a memo that goes to all these people that includes directions without going through legal." Let's say that. You see what I'm trying to say?

Yeah.

Brian, we've discussed relevance and we also discussed context directly. Now let's talk about perception. So we have to pass things by legal, you get what I'm trying to say? That's why on this call sometimes there's a break in the action because I'm wondering, should we actually say that before we cover, you know, because our free speech, you know, we don't want it to be up in any way.

And we also, same thing, controlling the message and not letting anyone take it the wrong way.

Absolutely, precisely. Which is important because we get paid for a message, you see what I'm trying to say?

Yes.

And people want that message, and we want to repeat that message. So that's why all McDonald's in the world are exactly the same. That's why all hotels that you go to, if it's a chain hotel, the rooms are identical, the desks are the same place, they offer the same warm cookie at the right time. My favorite here. We have to look at because we have to talk about a clever balance.

So, hey Greg, I kind of lost you on audio there. You said Brandenburg. Yeah, Brandenburg versus... okay. Yeah, start back over there. Just lost you a little bit on audio. It kind of got a little jumbled and then. So yeah.

So you're around. That means a message is coming in or I'm having a stroke, folks. So Brandenburg versus Ohio (Brandenburg v. Ohio). Please do your homework, go back, take a look. Case law is fun stuff to study. So in Brandenburg, and I'll 4-1-1 it for you, I'll get it down to street level. It says, "Hey, you can't punish somebody for their speech unless that speech incites, unless it incites imminent lawless action." So here, she may have a great lawsuit saying, "Listen, you violated my free speech by cascading me, by firing me, by forcing me into retirement, by censuring me when all I was doing is my job." Now, the problem again exists, is there an inter-office memo that said, "Nobody shall hit enter," right? So if she was fired for her free speech, Brian, there's an argument. If she was fired because she violated some policy, now, so folks, you need to understand that there's more to this than meets the eye. This is not, well, we hope it's not some knee-jerk reaction, right, Brian? Because a knee-jerk reaction is going to have that waterfall of effects, that cascading thing where the government comes in and goes, "Not so fast," you know.

And this is important, Brian. Let me just share this, going back to this. This is important too because we're coming up on election time, and so during election time people are going to do strange things. And this election is no different than some of the elections we have. For everybody watching, "This is the most important election ever," not the last example, not your midterm elections, not your city council, none of that. That's all these people calling names. It's never happened before. I remember that one president who shall remain nameless that was referred to as "His Accidency" because he accidentally got into the office.

Yeah, but Snyder versus Phelps (Snyder v. Phelps) is a great one, Brian, too. Because Snyder and Phelps were two guys that met on the street and it had nothing to do with voting, but it might as well have. And Snyder and Phelps had differing opinions, so Snyder and Phelps got really offensive and really outrageous real fast.

Yeah.

And you know what the law said? The law said, "You know, that's protected. They weren't hurting anybody." And no matter how far they were going, and somebody said, "Played the women and children card." Offensive language in the presence of women and children is a long-standing law in many agencies. And here's the way to, if you're an attorney and you want to know how to fight that one: "Your Honor, I'd like to ask for a few questions to pose you. Yes, have you ever had a Showtime or HBO free weekend? Yes, do you have a television? Yes, do you have kids?" (Withdrawing your honor.) Do you get what I'm trying to say? That objection. So Snyder versus Phelps said that, "Hey, listen, this is protected speech in here, and even if it gets outrageous, even if it gets offensive, we're going to allow it." And see, that's what the Supreme Court does, Brian. Supreme Court looks at certain things and, and the major's speech, the Supreme Court would protect it.

I don't know if you know RAV versus the City of Saint Paul, Minnesota (R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul). No, there's another one, and RAV is R.A.V., folks (R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul). Because it was a minor, and this is why you've got to study the law in history. Okay, so in R.A.V., R.A.V. was a teenager and he went up and he burnt a cross on the lawn of a Black family.

Yeah.

Okay. Now, that's about the worst thing that you could do. How outlandish is the person going to be? And so they arrested him and they charged him with a number of misdemeanor offenses for a juvenile in St. Paul, Minnesota. And this case on certiorari went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said, "You know what? There's a shitty thing to do, but you know what else? Your law was wrong. It was sufficiently broad and it wasn't narrow focused on these steps that he took and his intent and all these other things. So we're going to bounce it, we're going to throw it out, and he's free to go." So here's my thing, if you want to define what speech is, you have to constantly go back to the First Amendment and take a look at what protections are offered and Supreme Court decisions because if you don't, you think you have an opinion. Can you imagine Snyder and Phelps walking up on them arguing and a copper is saying, "Hey, you guys got to keep it down or I'll throw you in jail?"

Oh yeah, he.

See, if you don't know the law, Brian, you're going to come up against it. You're going to butt heads with it, right?

And then you, you bring up a good point about, you know, "Hey, it's, it's the Supreme Court decisions that generally kind of flush these out, that tactical level, sort of how they work, right? At that street level." Because it's, it's, it's not clearly defined. A lot of things are broad on purpose because you're not always going to know what the circumstances are. And it's not until one of those circumstances happen, right, that gets challenged. And that's no different than any law, but I don't care what it is. There's always, always some unintended consequences. There is no, "Hey, this law is all good," because five years from there, there's going to be someone that gets arrested or prosecuted under that law, and they're going to go, "Wait a minute, this is not what this meant for." So that's where it's, we, we see this stuff play out. But and the point I'm sure you're trying to make too is like, we don't get to arbitrarily say, "You can't say that," or, "You can't say this." And I know people like to use all these oversimplified and terrible explanations. It's like the whole, "Yeah, if you yell fire in a crowded theater and people get trampled." Like it's like the John Belushi, John Belushi's an author writing a dream, you know.

So that's that. But what's interesting about this is, you know, how does an email, an internal email, which an official email, I'm assuming internal to a municipal police department, has some level of confidentiality to it at least, or, I don't know, almost like, you know, the military has classification systems for classified material and what it leads to. But meaning I don't, I understand that we as a public citizen will, are allowed access to that at some point for some reason, but I don't assume it's just expected to be seen in the public domain, right? And that's an important distinguishment. One, because what people are willing to say, but two, what protection that has. Because if, if you know, law enforcement, if you're under, if you're working under the color of law, as a dutiful, you know, you are employed by a law enforcement agency, you are enrolled, you are on the clock, you are performing your duties, you will fall under a different set of rights, right? So good and bad, meaning some to protect you and some to protect the public, right? Meaning there's, there's two sides to that coin. So I don't, and I know we're having this discussion without deep diving into these specific policies and details, but that's okay because it's just what, and this is, I'm just asking you if you have any, can clarify what that would be, would they have any type of internal way of saying or, or I don't know how to put like, literally like, "This is not, it's for official use only. This wasn't meant to be..."

But I want you to, I want you, let's go back to logic, Brian. Let's, like, like if, if what is that, that thing? Yeah, holy [ __ ]! What did I say? No, what's that thing that I, and I never can remember it, Sheldon on Big Bang there, he grabs that little ball and he pulls it out and then, and that sphere is really huge and and, oh yeah, that's kind of just things.

Yeah, yeah.

So you just did that, right? And, and, and, I call it focus pulling. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Just like with the camera. Yeah. So the idea first of all is you can't unring that bell. So she's gone, she's done, she was forced into retirement, her career is over. And they'll cancel culture her ass and take her photo off the thing. And I apologize again for not naming her (Major Hallahan), because she will be case law. Just remember that. So no matter what skullduggery went on, no matter what those scandalous people did by releasing this email, the damage is already done. Now, even if it wasn't...

Well, do I, I do want to caveat this too, because this did just come out two days ago. We're going off of information we got out at this point, the best information that we have. It's October 1st at, you know, 8:45 Pacific Time that we're recording this. So keep that in mind, because all the perspectives of everything pops up a week from now, that all this other thing, they're, we're going on what was printed in an article.

So here, Brian, let's put it this way, and how that could change that Fabergé egg that we're tilting around before we peek at the village. If she was the one that after she got fired released the memo and said, "This is why I was fired," we have a whole new set of rules. Do you hear what I'm trying to say? And she may additionally be charged with, you know, taking confidential information outside of the workplace. Right? And that's a form of espionage. You know, follow me on this?

Yeah.

But if somebody else released that information preliminarily or if the agency itself released it, why would an agency, you know what I'm saying? You're going to discipline down and in. Okay, I'm looking up and out at the future, and so I'm going to discipline down and in, and I'm going to, because why else would you do it if not to set an example of behavior that you don't want in your agency? So they don't want this transparency, they don't want people making an opinion. What is it, an oligarchy? You know, the top guy is the only one that does the thing. First of all, we've got to understand, she didn't do anything illegal, but she may have violated a policy. And when I say, "How far can you go legally?" So Cohen in 1971 (Cohen v. California) is asked to come into his, is back when we had the draft, folks. Look up your his, California, California.

Yeah, exactly.

You and I, you and I had this discussion one time a long time ago. And so Cohen walks in and, and we were making a point, folks, and sometimes in the class we'll give a homework assignment to make a point because it sticks, it's sticky. So Cohen walks in and on the back of his jacket, pardon my language, he has "F[ __ ] the Draft." The F-word, and apologize only not, not trying to be salacious, just saying, this was in big letters in white on his black leather jacket. And security stops him. He says they bite me, "I've got business in here." He goes up. The lady goes, "I'm offended." And Mrs. Hall faints, and then all of a sudden a copper comes up, apparently I've been doing coke, a copper comes up and says, "Hey, you're hooked, man, you got the F-word on your jacket." The Supreme Court says, "Whoa, oh yeah, okay. This is protected under his First Amendment rights. And even though we don't like it, Brian, even though it offends me personally, he's got the absolute right to do that, even in a government building, and especially in a government building in front of other people. This is his form of expression." So then, then we go back to Brandenburg (Brandenburg v. Ohio) and says we can't, you know, punish the speech unless it's inciting a riot. And you can't like, like here's the thing, people don't know a police officer's peace cannot be disturbed. So I can't arrest you for disturbing the peace if you come up and go, "Hey, F the police and I hate you and get out of my head."

They don't have, they don't have an expectation of it.

Exactly. My job is to go out and get dirty. And I apologize, but I have to do that. But then we get Chaplinsky (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire) and Chaplinsky versus New Hampshire much later. And Chaplinsky says, "Hey, listen, unless it's fighting words..." Yeah.

Relax.

I don't know. So, so here's the idea. If you're using, it was a battle field one where Schenck (Schenck v. United States) started publishing things saying nobody should go to war, do this. And America was embroiled in getting amped up after Pearl Harbor to go to World War II. You get what I'm trying to say? And they, they said, "Hey, this is critical to the mission. So this guy's actually impeding us being able to get people to fight a war." And so that's the one where we get clear and present danger. Do you remember?

Right, right. Yeah. So it's a good movie actually. It's about a five-hour movie. Yeah, but it's got a lot of action.

But in Chaplinsky (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire), it's specifically like, for example, Brian, if we're in a bar and I go, "F you," and a copper comes up and goes, "I've seen language in the presence of women and children, you're disturbing the peace," and hooks me. No, you can't do that. Okay. Right? If I say, "Hey, you effing F, I'm going to rip your head off and shoot right on your neck," and I want to. Okay, now those things are likely to incite. That's, that's lawlessness. That's going to get people in Britain.

That's, that's more, it's, you know, it becomes, that could become a threat, a verbal assault, which did demonstrate that you can't demonstrate intent. So, like there's, there's, there's a higher, there's, you can legally then at that point make the argument that, "Hey, this is now likely to cause this," based on...

So are you saying that you have artifacts and evidence to support that reasonable conclusion?

Right.

So do you see how when we follow, Brian, scientists don't have the answers. Scientists ask the right questions. They ask, "What's the precedent?" That's a word that everyone in our audience that watches us or listens to us hears us repeat all the time. "What's the precedent? What has the stock market done? What has the Supreme Court done?" And now I think that's what casts a pall on the Louisville Police Department: "What have they done?" Well, what can we resurrect?

This speaks to exactly kind of what we discuss, and folks, if we're, I keep referring to the webinar stuff that we have, you can, you know, if you follow us on social media, you can get access to it, and same thing, and the website, but links and watch and stuff. But we just did one, we called "Riding for the Brand: Who's the Voice of Your Company?" Yeah. And what's happening is a couple of things. So they've got rid of her. All right, you're gone. Well, maybe that was, sounded like a knee-jerk reaction again, going off of just a little bit that "we don't like it." So now what people forget is that then opens them up to liability, meaning she can say, "Well, that was a wrongful termination and I'm going to sue the piss out of you." And now that ends up costing that city even more money. Right? It then, just because there's a valid lawsuit, that's what it is. So there, and that extends to, the reason I bring that up is because it extends to private companies when they want to take a stand on some social issue and they say, "Hey, this is what we think is okay." Well, unless you're clear, crystal clear on your policies, meaning you give your employees, "Hey, you can go no further than this direction and no further than this direction." Unless you're clear on that, you're opening up the door for them to take that policy and interpret it the way that they want it to be interpreted. So they may take that ball and run much farther down the field than you ever thought was going to be possible, and now you're opening yourself up to, they do something that's so blatantly outside what the policy was supposed to be, and they go, "Well, wait a minute, you said this." So now they piss someone off who then sues the company, then they fire the employee, and the employee turns around and sues the company. And now they have to walk back all this stuff that they just did. And now they're taking down the posters, and that costs money too, Brian. That costs time and money. And I think some more beginning. But I think that's a key point to reinforce.

Listen, if you're working in an agency and your boss comes up and says, "I know how much you want to personalize your cube, but we don't allow cartoons." So pictures of your family are okay, as long as they're not salacious, you know what I'm saying? Or, you know, asking for a swing party or something like that. A plant is okay, you know what I'm saying? This is okay. They have these written policies. Why would they want no cartoons, no political, no overt religious? So because what happens is exactly what's happening with this major (Major Hallahan), Brian. First of all, discovery. They're now the lawyers are going to sue for discovery and they're going to get a writ and they're going to go with a writ of mandamus and say that "we want every internal message for the last 10 years or the last four years." There you go. And so one guy saying, "Hey, baby, baby on the side." That's going to be disclosed, and all this stuff that they didn't want. The second part of that is they opened Pandora's box. Now, now you have this deposition coming back and forth. Excuse me, Brian, but I noticed that you're in an office. Does your office have any cartoons? You get what I'm trying to say?

Yeah.

Do any of those cartoons say, "What did she call those guys? Thugs?" or something?

Yeah, but you get what I'm trying to say.

Today, today, and what's going on today when somebody says "punks," they're typing and reading their blog, right? They go, "Punks," look it up. And some guy goes, "1872, it was used in this," and they immediately meant that. And another guy goes, "No, it was used by a NASA scientist to talk about aliens." You see everybody balancing it.

It sounds like a mom talking about some kids in the neighborhood. Like, that's the feel I get. Like, I'm assuming, I'm assuming the subject line in the email was "Take the High Road," because that's how the message came.

That only because you were born close to Scotland. So part of your history. Andrew Bastard, sir, coming in Rome. I don't want to bring that.

Yeah, that's a different case. No, but, but this is important, right? So I kind of want to get a little bit back to, you know, we're talking about First Amendment rights. Yeah. And now there are, and we also kind of discussed how some things are different with law enforcement versus the normal citizen, or specifically a law enforcement, I guess, working under the color of law, right? Meaning employed by the Police Department on the job. Like there, there's, they have certain restrictions, right? Just like military, like you can't, you're not supposed to go to political rallies, and yes, or in uniform, especially. Like you cannot be in uniform at some political because, because what you're implicitly doing is, it's like, it's, it's almost as if you're saying the armed forces or my branch of service is endorsing candidates. You cannot ever do that. So there's, there's certain rules that apply to some people that don't apply to others. And so one of that comes into law enforcement. But this is different than what we see, you know, in like the example of the guy, I think it was up in the Pacific Northwest, the police officer who did some rant on Facebook or Instagram inside of his patrol car.

Yep. While on duty.

Yep. He was exercising his First Amendment right. But I, I explained, "Well, that doesn't." Yeah, so. Because remember, all of this, one, I am a very, very ardent supporter of our free speech laws in this country. We have it better than anywhere, and I, the, the, I don't give a [ __ ] if you don't like what someone says. That's the beauty of it. You don't have to like what they say. You don't have to agree with it, you don't have to support it, but you have to let them say it. And I think the more you say, "No, you can't say that," it's, I always give the example of the, like the, the, all right, the local Ku Klux Klan is going to have a rally in a city and you're like, "No, we can't let them spew that hate speech." It's like, what do you think that's going to do to them? Do you think that's going to make them want to go, "Oh yeah, you're right. We probably shouldn't be talking like this. This is bad." No, it's going to make them fight even harder. So it's, you've got to let people talk. I'm okay with that, you don't have to like it. And we have clearly defined rules. So jump back to, sorry, I'm just a very, very good supporter.

So here, let's put his context are so important. Our CEO and I had a situation where we had to go on duty and protect a parade that was going to be the Ku Klux Klan in our town where we worked back in the day. Okay, we accidentally contracted the flu and weren't available to work that shift. Why? Because we voted with our feet. And even though they had free speech, it offended me so much that I decided to stay home, which was not illegal. I, I exercised my right to absent myself.

Absolutely.

Now here's the big question, and I'm going to go to your rant question specifically, but let me give a flashlight before we go laser, Brian. When does graffiti become vandalism? When does graffiti change from vandalism to be art? And doesn't free speech apply in both? Well, no, it doesn't. And so if you can answer that, if you're a legal scholar and you're out there watching, okay, we expose our weaknesses and our jugular every time we come on this podcast. Every second we're talking about opinion-based testimony and science. And so you come up and you tell me the answer to that because that's, that's a conundrum, Brian. That's the old, would it not that Gordian's Knot? What's the other one with a really, really hard question? So the idea behind your rant, and I'll leave that for a minute. The idea behind your rant is this: He had no right to post that to Facebook or Instagram, the police officer in the police car on...

Exactly. Right.

Why? Because you're exactly right, color of law goes both ways. You're a representative of that law enforcement agency. You're bound by state and local and federal laws. And it should be local, state, and federal, folks, but it doesn't matter. The idea is there's this whole ball of wax that you inherited. Marked police car, in full uniform, on duty, under somebody else's pay, with the auspices that the badge gives you more and greater responsibilities in that society. So for you to come up and say something that's your opinion-based testimony in that context, you can't do it. Do you get what I'm trying to say? We're, we're in a unique situation, Brian, because I can't fire you, you can't fire me, and Shelley's working to keep the lights on. Do you get what I'm saying? Unless she comes off the top rail, I think we're safe. Right?

He's the only one who can tell us to go bouncing. Exactly. She'd probably listen to anything about it. I'm just going to listen. Okay, and just say, "Okay," a lot. Yeah. But if you say, "What again?"

But the idea, Brian, is he did not have the right to say that. It's like, you think about this: jurisdiction. You, you vote a mayor, and then the mayor cannot unilaterally decide at the beginning of the community meeting, "Hey, listen, we're going to do a closed door session." There's rules for that.

Yeah.

There's rules that govern. Then I'm not talking about Roger's Rules of Order, I'm talking about laws that say you can't do those discussions behind closed doors. Right? So just as the treasury, the treasurer for your agency, has to keep his stuff in a row and send in the taxes and do all the right stuff, there's certain laws and procedures that cover your mouth. And I would tell you, I would caution any CEO out there: your message is discoverable. If you're Instagramming and you're part of the, well, that's the mass that works at an agency and you go, "Hey, it really blows working for McDonald's." That's one thing.

Yeah.

But if you're Ray Kroc, that's what, yeah, others. So I don't think Ray Kroc is going to be posted on Facebook anytime. You never know the fourth dimension.

But, but you know, but this, let's go to that gray area, right? So what that officer we were talking about sitting in his patrol car going on some rant about his own political beliefs and what he thinks, "Hey, that's great. You're allowed to have those." You don't, you don't get to record yourself in, on duty, in a police car paid for by the taxpayers under color of law saying all that stuff. Sorry, you're, you're done. Like that, that's. Now go to the area where now he's not there. Now he's at home and he's done and he joins us on here, Greg, and hops on a podcast and goes, "Well, this is what I think." Now that's different. Because one, it's covered under free speech and First Amendment, unless there is some departmental policy that you agreed to that said, "You will not go on here and do this, this, or this." You will, now there's guidelines in there, there's, there's left and right lateral limits, there's probably ways he could get around or whatever. But, but meaning unless it's clearly defined, he can do that. That's within his rights. Right?

And if he makes a mistake, Brian, I think that's an ancillary argument. But if one makes a mistake, like if I'm speaking and I make a mistake and somebody calls, man, the great thing about being a decision scientist or an information scientist, if somebody comes and shows us that we're wrong, you and I would be the first ones to step up and say, "Hey, look at that. Caveat, this is what we're going off on this article because there may, something may come to light when I go, he click publish this episode and then it all comes out that it was like, you know, and we're all, 'Right, she never worked there.'"

Yeah.

No, but Brian, listen to me. If we make a mistake, okay, if that person makes a mistake, why are we going with the nuclear trigger on this one? It appears to be, for example, that guy deserved to be fired because he violated a policy and he posted stuff that could have caused irreparable harm. And you're saying, "Yeah, but the message..."

Listen, we're not, care about the message. Yes, we're not the arbiters of whether the message is right or wrong. That's not my job.

Exactly.

And it's not. But here's the thing, that's not really anyone's job, right? We have it like, "You don't get to say, 'No, Greg, you can't think or say that,' because that is it." You don't get to say that. Right?

Yeah.

And that's the thing. And so I would say the same thing to that officer, "But you don't get to say that. Like you don't get to rant. You want to go have that on your off time and do whatever." Like you, you understand? It's almost like, are we eroding the understanding of the response roles and responsibilities in society? Meaning, did, like, why would he do that? Is it because of we're now, you know, there's all kinds of different reasons of, of, you don't clearly understand what you're doing. And then, but then he gains sympathy, and now that starts to change. Now culture, you go, "Yeah, it is okay." Because everyone's trying to do stuff and keep up and departments are, are trying to, like, "Hey, have good social media accounts and outreach," because they're always trying to catch up and stay on top of things. And now it's like you're, you're, you're eroding that trust. And that's the problem. I don't care, I don't care if I completely agree with every word he said or completely disagree with every word he said because it does not, that's not part of the argument. And that's the problem is everyone makes it part of the argument now. They make it about him. And it's like, "No, you're, you doing that, by doing that, you erode trust in that public institution. And if we don't have trust in our institutions, and what was it, we're making it up as we go away, right?"

So we have to understand that in America, our kids have education and they have the right to education, that's not so in every country. Our kids generally know how to read and write by a certain age, that's not true in other countries. We have a clinic where you can go in your town and get a flu shot, that's not available everywhere else. So I want to give you an example of how that spins wildly out of control. So I'm going to take the shoe phone, Brian, and I'm going to take a picture of my junk. Yeah, I'm going to send it to you. And that's commonly what, like, "How many times today could I do that?"

Yeah, again. Yeah, by the way, stop doing that, please.

Exactly. But yeah, we, the HR is off today. But the idea, Brian, is that do you think that the first kid that figured out sexting, that sent his boyfriend, girlfriend, significant other, doesn't matter who you are, do you think that they wanted to cause the firestorm, the maelstrom that came out of that? Now the idea was that the person just wanted to send a picture to somebody's junk. Maybe it was funny, maybe it was flirtatious, it doesn't matter. But now how many tendrils go out? First of all, that was allowing pedophiles to exploit a team. Second thing is that violated FCC laws because you're not, you know, then we have obscenity, and we have pornography, then we have who's the willing participant, then we have all these other things. So what, what happens in America today is we're willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's probably something I'm going to be. Because we're saying, "My personal opinion is more important than your personal opinion or a group's opinion." That's not why laws are there.

No, but, but and again, we, we talk about the historical perspective on some of this. I always go, "Look, it's, it's just because it's a new platform doesn't mean it's new," right? Meaning, meaning, the, the things that they, people used to talk all the same crap on politicians and this. And but at the time you had to either go to the town hall or you had to write something out or get it published in a paper. So it's just much easier now and we all have more access to it, so it's louder, right? That it's being, and more dangerous, it's being, I don't know, you know what I mean? I'm still doing the "it's the signal and noise ratio." How much of this is noise and how much aggressive signal? Right? And, and I think like the everything that happens, because now, like, perfect example, that police officer can do that and his, in his squad car, now can like that, that's just like putting up that megaphone to, to his voice. Now, now it goes better. So like, yeah.

But here's the thing though, how many people even remember what I'm talking about?

You know? You get what I'm saying?

Like, what's the, what's the new thing?

What's the, everyone's so obsessed with that. So, so that's why I always say I, I, is it, is it just noise or is this a signal? Right? And, and the other thing is with, when it comes to the, the free speech laws, look, they're defined. Yes, they are. It's not that, and don't give the, I always love the "read the Constitution." If anyone says that, just tell them to shut up because that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But where this plays out is in you rattled off probably 15 different case laws right now that pertain specifically to this issue, right? And, and so that's where it gets played out. And that's, that's good. It takes time to make changes, which is a good thing. You don't want rapid fluctuations in, in our government. And it's a system of checks and balances and that has to get tested. Well, it doesn't get tested. You don't get to beta test a law, right? You don't get to do a, "Let's do a simulation on that law and see how it plays out and then adjust it before we enact it." That's not how it works. Right? It's not a, it's not, it's not a computer game, it's not a, "Hey, I do predictive analytics and I have this data company." Yeah, your [ __ ] sucks because it's not that great and I know it. People think it is, but it's not. Look at all the problems that are coming from it. So you don't get to do that with law. So you have to enact them. And I, I, I'm convinced that that when politicians enact laws or bills, they pass those, it is in good faith. They really truly believe that what they're doing is going to have the intended effect that they want out of it. And everyone who signs their name on that goes, "Yes, this is good. My constituents will like this. This is good for the American people. Let's pass this." Right? And then what happens? It goes into law and then we start to go, "Oh, here's where we're a little early. Hang on, wait a minute, wait a minute. This wasn't the intent. This is not what we meant to do. We were trying to solve this problem, not make the matter worse." Right? So, so that's going to happen. But that has to play out in courts and it has to, unfortunately, it plays out in the public domain. And the other issue with, with, the social media stuff is, you know, everyone gets an opinion, which is there's two sides to every coin.

That's why you're spot on, Brian, your assessment is correct. Let me, let me quickly throw in two sides of the coin to your argument. One, I want to talk about danger and speed of communication. But before I do, everybody out there, if you've ever run into me and I just went over 40 years of doing this professionally, everybody tells me, "Hey, what's the best show to watch? What's this? Have you ever watched Lie to Me?" I don't watch any of that. And Brian, you know, you travel with me all the time. If we're not in a bar drinking or we're writing code, do you know what I'm trying to say? Yeah. Or both of the time. If we can, Jason Hooker's taking photos, whatever. But the idea is that if you go back and watch, we don't have, we're on the sticks, we don't have the type of television everybody else has. So the best TV shows about law enforcement: Andy Griffith Show—yeah, it's kind of moral to everything—Adam-12, Dragnet—not Law and Order, no, no, specifically, "Just the facts, man." Now, yeah. Yes. So I admonish everybody, I implore everybody that's listening to my voice right now, go back and watch any episode of Dragnet or Adam-12 from the '60s. And the reason I want you to do it is because they're facing the same problem. You'll see white supremacists, you'll see riots, you'll see arguments over whether drug, because nothing ever changes, it's the same stuff. What changes is that frequency, Brian, and how intensive the frequency is because of speed. We don't have time to slow down communication and have open discussion about it. Everybody wants the reaction now. And I already said it, science isn't about giving you the answer, science is about asking the right questions. So I'll tell you the danger that I see and I'd like your response. The danger of instant messaging is you can't pull it back because now it's on YouTube, now it's on Instagram, now it's everywhere. And we had a friend that said, "Hey, listen, in my company, let's say that they make widgets, I came out and I said this thing and I'm the CEO of a company and immediately I got dropped by, let's say, Walmart and Chopco and whatever else." Listen, it's not the same rules, it's not the same environment. Even though the laws are the same, perspective has changed that they're going to judge you before all the facts are in. So a warning to anybody that's out there, if you wrote it down, if you said it, if you printed it, if you sent that picture of you in your knickers, it's discoverable and it's out there somewhere. So Brian, rein it in. Do you see what I'm trying to say?

You're falling in with the "punk" term, using also "knickers," which is, oh my gosh, I can't say "knickers." Oh, and now somebody right now is calling it, that's a problem.

Actually.

Just, I just actually just meant that's not a term that's used anymore, so it's, it's just a British term for your underwear. I wasn't going anywhere. Oh my gosh.

But, but no, no, well, you bring up a point about, you know, asking the right question. And yes, and that's, that's inherently difficult, right? We all want the answer. Like, we all want to go, "Oh, this is why this happened, right? Oh, now I get it. This is what explains it." And nothing is ever that simple. There's very, no, it's not black and white. It's not just unless you're, you know, unless you're, you're, your transmission goes out in your car and you go, "Oh, here's the problem," or something occur, like some mechanical device you can point to the specific. But even though, even with that, there's still other contributing factors that cause that to happen, right? So, so it's not as simple as everyone wants. But to, to kind of go to what you were talking about, not just about asking the right questions, it's about, where are they going with this, the free speech and how it changes over time and, and what we can and can't say and, and, and all that, you know, I, I look at it as I, it, that's, it's, it's, it's always adapting, right? It's always in flux, it's always in changing. And, and it's sometimes, look, our system is inherent, it's unfair, but everything is unfair. Like, life is unfair. Some people are born into a really good family, some people are born in the worst situation, some people get treated, right? So, so that, that's okay, meaning it's going to happen. We just try to keep it as fair as we can get, right? Without impeding someone else's rights, because there's someone's always going to make out better than others. Someone's always going to lose out more than each other. And I'm not trying to minimize any of these things. It's, it's just saying, like, the perspective is everything, right? What's the context of what this occurred? Like you, what, what can you do, what can't you do? Like there's legal precedent. So you brought it up. And, and precedent is, is hugely, hugely important. It's, it's from what everything is based on. It's not unlike what we teach people about, you know, looking for anomalies. Well, first you have to establish a baseline. What are your knowns? Right? That's, that's a, that's what is the problem?

That's, yeah, that's like an example of almost at a personal level of what a precedent would be.

Oh, here's what's known, here's what's written down, right? Here's what's been established before. How does this specific situation deviate from that or is it different or does it fall under that? And that's the beauty of how our system of checks and balances work. But exactly. We've talked about this before about there's a, there's a big misunderstanding of what our rights are and what civil liberties are and what police can and can't do. Like there seems to everyone gets it from TV and social media, and you're like, "No." Again, the danger, it's too fast. We don't look back on it.

So, Brian, you just brought up something again that goes to the danger side, or I'll exploit it to the danger side, even if I'm conflating it. The idea is that if a copper stops you and that copper comes up to you and you say, "This is an illegal contact. There is nothing right about this contact." You have the absolute right, the absolute right to fight that. Okay? You have the absolute right to say, "I am not going to be party to this," but not at the scene. You don't. You have it in the courts. Do you understand? So you can't say that, "I've decided that your action as a police officer is wrong, so therefore I'm not going to submit to you patting down my outer clothing." You get what I'm trying to say? And therefore we're going to get in a scrum. No, you have the right to say, "I was wrong," and that's called recourse. Okay?

Right.

And so then you do that recourse by talking to an attorney or going to the desk sergeant or going and suing somebody. That's what's been lost, Brian. Flash to bang meant that there was time for us to cool and think and come heads, prepare, discuss, and write opinion pieces. We don't do that.

No, I, I agree with you on that in terms of the flash to bang and the speed at which these things happen, right? So I don't think it's anything new. It's just it happens faster and therefore, and and louder, right? So that also leads to a number of issues. Right? If it's louder, we think it's a bigger problem. Where how much of this stuff that's been going on forever did you ever hear about 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago? Now again, there's always two sides to that coin. Yep, that's, that's a bad thing in a lot of situations because we, we weren't hearing about very, very serious inequities or very serious issues or, or people not get, being treated properly under the color of law or, or not been giving the civil liberties that they deserve. But, but how, that's why I go back to the, the signal noise. Is, is how is this happening more frequently or is it just each event, no, louder? And, and it's how we deal with it though, is what you, that your good point, which I agree with, is it's now become, you know, I mean, and, and part of this is because of the beast of what social media is. And, and you know, specifically we're talking about law enforcement, their police department's wanting to put information out there. What did every press conference used to say? Everyone hated because it was like, "Well, hang on, we've got to wait for the investigation. Hey, I know you all want answers. No, we want a process. Hey, look, this is going to take." Like that was always, "Hey, we don't have any updates yet," because they were doing what? Because they were investigating this situation. Now it's, "All right, here's what we know." It's like, "Whoa, this thing just happened five minutes ago." And it's like, "Hey, we know this, this is what we have. This is what's going on. We're already doing this." And you're like, "How, how do you, how do you have all this information already? How have you conducted a thorough investigation?"

You just hit on a caper, Brian, that was just in the news, and I apologize for not having the facts in front of me, a future podcast perhaps. And a couple of coppers and a prosecuting attorney and somebody else got fired. They were doing a live police show on television that's no longer on television. It just, just happened.

Yeah, I think it's happened within the last like 24 or 48 hours.

And these guys got fired because they destroyed evidence that happened. That was in Texas or something, I think.

Yeah, yes. A traffic stop, the traffic stop turned into a vehicle pursuit. The vehicle pursuit proceeded for 22 minutes. The person that had a heart attack or something, congenital heart failure.

Yeah. So what happened is when, when lawsuits come in, they talk about proximate cause. So if you were the supervisor on duty and you didn't call off that pursuit, even if you didn't know all the facts, you understand how people are going to get sued vicariously?

Right. Yeah.

Well, the point though, Brian, is that the information available was so damning or so prejudicial or so important to one side or the other that these folks found, "Well, we have to destroy it." And guess what? The destruction of the information was the real crime here. The destruction of the artifacts and evidence. The, the same thing. Listen, we get quotes all the time from people that say, "Oh, this is much worse than this with any other." Would you have liked to be around when Genghis Khan was riding a horse? Yeah. Do you get what I'm saying? You can't do that. You can't balance yin and yang. What you can say though is you can say it was wrong for them to destroy the evidence. Why? Because we had the right to know and it had the right to be judged in a court of law. So due process on that suspect, whether he was guilty or not, Brian, whether the pursuit, somebody's going to say, "Hey, a 22 minute pursuit, he's a felon anyway." Doesn't matter, he did not get his day in court. And that's, I think the real issue here, is that you're going to be judged for what you say now, and so be careful because if you put it out there, you can't withdraw it. And if you do withdraw, what's going to be a public apology and your company's lost millions and tens of millions of dollars.

Well, that's, that's the issue and that gets into like people saying, "Oh, well, it isn't fair." It's like, yeah, I mean, if you're that police officer, that CEO of that company, and you put something out on your personal social media account, and now you're out of a job, and your product just got pulled from every major national retail, like you, no, that's not fair. That's not fair to everyone else that works at that company though. Like, that's the thing. "We're going to tear you down, Greg, because you said that." And now your company just shits the bed and there goes 5,000 jobs. You're like, "What, wait a minute?" Because even if the guy was completely wrong or whatever, like because this guy was an ass and said something stupid, now you just shut down part of the economy. Like, what is, what is going on? But you, you brought up a kind of couple terms here. I, I just wanted to, to kind of go over because you said proximate. So cause, we talk about proximate cause and we talk about contributing factors a lot, right? So give me like a street definition or, or a legal definition actually if you can, of what those mean. Start with, what does proximate cause mean?

Yeah. So here's the thing. If damage was done, and remember, it's up to somebody else to figure out what damage was. Was it injury? Was it injury to your good name? Was it monetary? Do you get what I'm trying to say? So the proximate cause means that even though you might not be at the scene, you are somehow held responsible. So an accident, I was a DUI driver and I hit you and your daughter now has a broken leg. Okay? So obviously I'm at fault. But do you know what else is at fault, Brian? The airbag in your car may not have deployed at the right rate. So I'm going to sue the airbag manufacturer and my brake manufacturer and the street light manufacturer, you get what I'm saying? In the, in the concrete manufacturer on the street where the accident occurred. Because if you take a look at it vicariously, any one of those could have been contributing factors. So proximate cause means that you somehow have been deemed responsible by law, even though you weren't the one that threw the punch or crashed the car or, or, you know, the person that drowned. We go back and say it was overserving at the alcohol and then that Bacardi is too much rum. So approximate cause is a line that goes back identifying a person or a thing.

Okay. So the proximate cause would be you are the responsible party or you're the, like the, the, basically, had it not been for your specific actions...

Precisely.

...would not have occurred.

Would not have occurred.

Now, contributing factors are all things that factor in, like you just said. "Okay, yes, you were intoxicated, but also those brakes that were manufactured by wherever weren't up to whatever code they were supposed to be," or, "that vehicle, it was supposed to be recalled and they never notified me of it." And then, like you said, that the, the, you know, whatever happened, the lineman working the power line earlier in the day...

Exactly. Right.

...did something completely wrong that he wasn't supposed to do that cut the power of the stoplight. And now that was. So all of those things have to do with it. Now, now you're still the proximate cause, but all of these contributing factors. And I'm, that's the problem, because I think that's too complicated for people, and I'm not saying people, it is...

No, you're exactly right. We're not willing to accept the fact that there are other, other factors involved.

We want this simple. "It's your fault. You did this. You, you shouldn't have been doing that. And you knew better." And you, and, and I get it. Like, man, we just talked about that on the last episode when I was trying to understand my friend's suicide. It was like, "What, what occurred?" And, you know, it's not one thing, there was 15 things going on, just like in the situation you brought up. And, and at least, and I know that's, you know, especially if you're the victim of a crime, you don't want to hear that. You don't want to know, like, "Well, he technically was like just at the limit and, and he really wasn't this. There was all these other..." And you're going, "No, that's the guy that hit me and killed my kid," or what, you know what I mean? So what, what are we waiting for?

Horrible.

Exactly. And, and, and I get it. But these things are complicated. People don't want to hear that, especially now. Like, "I can't get all that information, Greg, right now. I want a link to that article and I want you to summarize it. Right? And I want it right now and then I'm never going to think of it again and give me my opinion so I can share it." How many times do we do cases in class where we go, "Hey, let's talk about this one"? Number goes, "Oh yeah, I remember that. Isn't that where this happened?" You're like, "No, that's not what happened at all." And then people go, "You've got to be kidding me. Yes, I had no idea that all of that was out there and this is what really occurred." And we did it on the, the Amber Guyger one down in Dallas, we did the podcast on that, that, that specific situation. And, you know, you do all these, what people forget is everyone just that news cycle goes and there's a new case. Well, now this, I think it was Major Hallahan down in Louisville. Okay? Because what's going to happen? She's going to be like, "Yeah, this is wrongful termination and I'm suing you for every dollar you owe me. Oh, by the way, I wanted to do 30 years here plus a full retirement plus this plus my..." We're going to make a deal and buy her out. That's what I'm saying is, is they, they, they have to. And now her life is ruined. Here's her life, a public service, trying to do the right thing. Her message was the right message and someone else took it the wrong way. And you go, "You know what? We can't have any of that." Meanwhile, we're not focused on, on people that are actually causing the problems. That's the problems. It takes away from the real...

It takes away from, from the, the, I'm whatever you tell me what the percentage is because I don't care what profession you're in, there's some percentage, whether it's 10 or 15 or 20 percent they [ __ ] don't do a goddamn thing and they drag everyone else down and they cause all the problems, right? Even criminals, like, like the criminals who commit like 80% of the crime, right? That's, that's you mathematical distribution that crosses all different domains. But, but the point is is we all know that those things exist. Now it's, it's, yeah, it's worse when you're in a position of public trust, whether you're a politician or law enforcement or fire. But, but it distracts from, from those, it distracts from the real issue. It goes, "Here's this symbolic thing. We want to take down." They wanted to take down another statue. And I'm sorry, it didn't add up. It's like they see the statue, that's it.

You, you, you pegged it, Brian.

Let me, let me, I want to just throw in a companion argument. Okay? You understand that God, Buddha, Vishnu, Allah, does not matter what your religion is or if you do not choose religion, because human behavior profiling, behavior pattern recognition analysis, works on anomalies and profiling anomalies. So it has nothing to do with any of those things. But there are religions in the world and people that say they practice religions unless their kid gets sick, then they're the first person yelling on a bully pulpit saying, "How would a God allow this to happen to a child?" Or the tornado or some. Look, I love my God, but I also love my science. And the idea is that I dig deeper so I don't make a fool of myself every time I open my mouth. And one of the ways I do that is context. And the other one is relevance. And the third, I guess, would be, I take a look at the historical perspective and see the way decisions have been made before me to guide my decisions going forward. And that's called precedent.

Well, and, and you bring up a great point, you said, you know, "religion," and then you talk about "science." They, people think that those are competing interests and they're absolutely not. Actually, the history of science is, is directly tied to most major religions because that's where the knowledge was. So you can with the, you know, the Muslims were the one who, everything we know about astrophysics is came from them. The Catholic Church has centuries of, of scientists working for them, astronomers, you know what I mean? All of this stuff. So, but I would, I would go one step above just religion and I would, I would say ideology versus science. Because your ideology could be religious, social, cultural, whatever it is, racial, whatever. I, I don't know, sexual ideology. There's probably a million of them out there of different types of ideologies. And that doesn't have to compete with or come in conflict with the scientific method, with a precedent, a legal precedent, with data and information and, and scientific theories. Remember, theory is something that's been proven, folks. If it's just your opinion, that's called a hypothesis. So use language, language is important. We can't even agree upon language, Greg. It didn't even hit me until a while back when we were doing, when we interviewed Dale Dye and he was like, the actor Dale Dye, and he was like, he brought up somebody, but, but I was like, you know, you're right, like we're not even articulating some of these issues. So I, I think those are, that's a whole nother.

I remember the language. Go back to Dale though. Remember the language where Dale got on your case because you were talking about a Connecticut environment. Yeah, and Dale, please call us back. What's going on? We were supposed to do a pod with one of your friends, but I'm on the backend right in commons with them. So wait a minute, okay, that didn't come out right. I was talking about language. That didn't come out at all right.

Yeah, I was talking about language. No, but, but that, this is, I don't know how we, we got over to ideology versus science, but I think what it is is you have to use a framework to look at these cases and you have to, and the law is such a framework. It is, it's one of the many frameworks you can use actually, right? It's, we, it's not just law, it's, it's, it's science, it's politics, it's this, whatever you want to do, you can. Right?

But the survival of a concept, Brian, Code of Hammurabi. There's no nation in the world that where homicide is legal. But killing of a human being can be legal in combat or after that person's been adjudicated as, you know, requiring the death penalty or whatever else. And we're still arguing about those. So it's concrete. And I say concrete because Hammurabi's codes were written in stone, literally and figuratively. Do you see what I'm trying to say? We're still fighting with those. So don't bring new issues because of the speed of communication. So I, I guess, you know, because we're the overarching theme here is, you know, the, the future of the First Amendment. You know, yes, all of this free speech stuff goes into it and, and obviously, you know, social media is a big one and how it's used and the way people use it and what you can and can't say and, and then people say, "Well, you can't block me out for doing this." And I'm like, "That's a private company that runs your app there, buddy. They can do whatever the heck they want. Anything they want, they could tell you to go pound sand. They can boot you off." Like if they're, "Well, it's their community guidelines to write." So if they feel that you violated something, no one cares what you think, it's their platform. And which is interesting, going in...

Yeah, well, I, no, I don't think people understand what that means.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. When you hit, how many times do we get something from a company, you accept it and it's nine pages long and we accept the terms? And Brian, you're saying that people routinely disregard them. Things on television say, "Hey, listen, lose 15 pounds by Christmas," right? And people are going in there saying, "Well, they lied to me." They didn't lie to you. Right in a small print it tells you the boilerplate version warned you. We just didn't listen or we didn't assume we didn't know what we should have known, right? So knowing everything that we discussed, let's go and let's, let's answer the question, what is the future of the First Amendment? I mean, is it being, is it being tested more now than it ever has been? Or is this like, we say this continues? And because what's, I mean, what, what, what is the future then? I mean, I, I don't, I don't.

I'll put it against. I don't want it. Like, no.

But I don't want to be nebulous about this. You understand that, that with the planets and our solar system and the sun and the Milky Way and going out further, okay, sooner or later our, our sun is going to do what other suns did. And, and the precedent that's been set by other suns is turn into a white dwarf or whatever is going to happen. I'm not an astrologer or an astronomer and I'm no scientist, but the idea is going to be here. It's going to cool. We're going to spin out of orbit and there's no longer going to be a habitable earth for us. Okay? That's what's going to happen with the First Amendment. It's always going to be there. It may be a dead star decaying somewhere in an orbit of a new galaxy, but the First Amendment is as strong today as it was then. And the Supreme Court, nobody's got to worry about the Supreme Court because when cases go before them, they choose right all the time. They might not choose right for your side, but guess what? In a ball game, there's winners and there's losers, Brian. But that doesn't mean that after the game is lost, we discontinue baseball. The idea is that the law is there for a reason. Now it may get an amendment, but do you know how long it's been since amendments and how unique they are? So right now everything's okay. Things are going to get better. Yeah, it's a contentious election and yeah, we have COVID, but it's no different than anything else, Brian. It'll even out like Wall Street and get better.

Well, that, that, that comment alone is, "This is the most important election of your..." Like, you, you do realize you're negating everything that came before that then and you're saying, "No, none of that matters at the time." No, at the time it really [ __ ] mattered, actually.

Well, so, hey, I mean, remember Hillary Clinton with the glass ceiling and they showed the picture and she didn't make president so they didn't get to break the glass ceiling. And somewhere Cleopatra was going, "You bastard, how dare you?" Do you know what I'm trying to say? Listen, we discount what came before. We, because of confirmation bias, we want to think that we're in the most important generation at the most important time and that nothing equates to what we're doing. Coppers have had this kind of problem before. Look back at Kent State, look back at the Democratic National Convention, look back at all the things that have happened in our history. But journalists don't want to do that. Journalists don't want to go immediately to, "Get me to, 'Oh, I want to eat the popcorn and read this article.'"

We're definitely fed more, you know, we need that instant gratification. But that's also because, I mean, Greg, there's so many issues now that I have to apparently have an opinion and be concerned about. Like there, I mean, what do you, I mean, the reason why the news cycle wasn't like this before is because you, you know, not all of this was being covered and everything wasn't a sensational story and no one cared what some famous person ate for lunch that day and what the, you know what I mean? It wasn't, it's a little bit different.

It's a choice, but it's a choice. Albert Einstein chose not to wear socks because he thought they were stupid. Albert Einstein wore the same clothes every day because he didn't want to burn up the space here worrying about what to wear. Do you get, you get it though?

But how many, I do. How many, no, no, but, but, but that's a perfect example, Greg. Years ago there'd be all these stories on LinkedIn and in magazines about these CEOs, these high-performing CEOs and, and, "Look, they even wear the same clothes so they didn't have to think about that." And they get these people they could be like, "You're perfect."

Exactly.

Like, "Yeah, Albert Einstein used to do that." Like this stuff has been around. People know that.

Exactly. Here's what I want to burn my calories on: homework. That's it. I want to be really good at this so I'm going to focus everything. So let me get rid of all this other stuff over here, right? So I don't have to deal with that. And that's a perfect example. Hollywood calls it nostalgia, Brian.

Yeah.

And you said it the other day, you, you sent me a great article by a guy that I liked reading that article for, or about the topics that he wrote about, the former Marine. It was a great thing and I don't remember his name right now, folks, but it was a good one.

Oh, is that the, because the guy who wrote all about how conspiracy theories...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I can't think of his name, but it was wonderful and please do a shout out to him because I really enjoyed that. But Hollywood used to call that nostalgia, Brian. Some people call that, you know, what's it called when you write something and it's not your own and you publish it as if it's your own? What's that law that, you know, like people that would write a book about copyright?

Yeah, copyright, intellectual property theft. Yeah. But here's the thing, right, plagiarism.

You gave your program to the Marine Corps, so I need to really write about their experiences. Marine Corps, yeah. But they can't write about my experience. That's what they were doing. They can.

Yeah, I guess so.

But Hollywood does that, Brian, with greater aplomb. How many times has A Star Is Born been rebuilt? You answered the question instead of that green beret thinks people want it. So, so the idea is that when I come up to a menu, like I hate the drive-through. One, I can't hear a goddamn thing. Three, I know the food's [ __ ] okay. So then what happens? I come up and there's 900 things on the menu and you're going to say, "Wow, isn't it great that we have so many more choices on Wikipedia or the internet?" Yeah, I'm going to say, "No, it was much better when I had a few choices and I could read about those choices and learn more about it." I think the speed of social information is causing these ripple effects. And Brian, I think that your astute observation about signal and noise is the answer. First Amendment's going to be around for a great long time because this too is going to settle down. We're going to say, "This is too much information," and when we rein it back in, First Amendment will still be there.

Well, that, that's, that's the whole thing. Like, that's the point is, you know, we always call it the, the pendulum swing of logic. But it's the same thing in politics, right? What happens every time we have a Republican president and then everyone goes, "Oh, we hate this guy." And then they elect a Democrat and then they go, "Oh, we hate this guy. And they hate this guy." And that's those percentages. I mean, and that, and I, that I look at that, that's a good thing. Right? Meaning we're kind of like, right? We're not so divisive. We're, we're not so divided on issues. We're everyone's kind of right there. So, so that I don't know, I always like that as a good thing because it's not switching from extremely extreme. But, but we get that pendulum swing. But, oh, it has to settle somewhere and it's going to settle where it always has. It's going to settle with whatever the historical precedent has been, whether that, you know, a legal or social. What we're like, ideas that don't work don't stand the test of time. They just don't. And you can find examples throughout history and it's just in the time is relative. So it may have been 100 or 200 years before it went away. That's the thing that we're not looking at. So it could be a flash in the pan.

Well, protracted over a long period of time because time doesn't matter when we're looking at the continuum, Brian. We're looking at the state of everything.

Well, you brought up Einstein. It's, it's completely relative, right? So...

Absolutely.

And, and that's a good point because maybe before it took, took 100 years or 200 years for a really bad idea to, to die out. And then now it might be days or weeks. That's what I'm saying is we don't know what that is. But, but, but those bad ideas don't, the point is they don't stand the test of time. They don't exactly run forward. I am, I'm a huge proponent of evolutionary biology and you could apply that all across the board, right? We constantly adapt. So whatever it is that we come to is what it is meant to be. Right? That is what it will be or, or that'll get corrected, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not a, I don't, I just think it, it probably those, I guess to, to keep with the biology example, those genetic mutations happen faster now. But they don't humans and they don't the way we think, they don't the way we interact. They do sometimes socially or electronically adapt.

Yes, yeah, we adapt to a phone now. Back when I was growing up, we had the rotary phone. Back when I was a cop, the Motorola was so big, you were never going to hide it. The Kyowa was something that you had a duct tape to your chest. You get what I'm trying to say? For for low band communications, and now you'd never be able to find that. But Brian, there's a learning curve too. And don't sit there and tell me about the constitutionality of something. You know, in my truck on the visor, I've got my Constitution. It's never far from me. Don't go up and try to battle somebody like your dad about the law because you know what? Those folks do their homework. So you know how you battle them? You do your homework. I, I, I call people fat because I'm a fat ass. So I, I, I can get into that realm in that fight. But that excludes you, Brian, because you're in good shape. I'm just saying, fight harder and smarter.

So I'll, I'll post links to, you know, specifically some of the cases that you brought up. So yeah, if people want to, they can get the back story and do a little bit of reading on it or I'll post up what they are. But, you know, write us a question, a specific question. Well, that's a good point. There is someone that was kind of reaching out here on Facebook as we were going live saying like how he was arrested and beaten or something for not doing anything. And I just sent him the email address and said, "Well, email us the case." I don't, you know, because it's an open-ended question. "Oh, how come," I'm sorry, "How come innocent people get arrested?" It's like, "Well, that's a very, I don't know if that happened. Like, you have to give me a specific example." Like we, we sometimes over, we all over generalize, right? We have to, to make our way through bad cops or bad arrests. There's a bad library, I went to a bad 7-Eleven. I'm sorry for your caper, but tell us more about it, we might have an answer.

Yeah, thanks for listening.

I mean, yeah, there's bad, there's bad dogs. I'm assuming this is part of the Marine client, just so you know. How does, you know, medical malpractice still such a major issue in our country? Well, because there's bad doctors out there. You know, I, I don't, they're, we're not making light of your personal situation. If you feel you've been wronged, there's a way out of it. Yeah, well, I think that's a, a pretty good point to, to, to end on there, Greg. Unless you have something else you want to add about...

Nothing, but I do know that training changes behavior.

Oh, you can't steal my line! I'm not letting you get the last word. Like you've never stolen anything of mine. Yeah. So no, no, no, that's, wait, what is it? It's a remake or a, what does Hollywood have the different names?

Yeah, we call that The Left-A-Bang Theory. I'd watch that show.

All right, man. Well, everyone, don't forget to check out the links in the episode. Please, thanks for joining us. Yeah, appreciate you joining always. You can follow me on Facebook as well for when we pop up on here live and then you can ask questions as we go. Sometimes we get good ones, sometimes it's just my buddy Dan saying that he loves me, which is fine, I appreciate the praise too. And, and so, so that, that's all good. But, uh, no, follow us along on there. Send us your questions. Tell your friends about it. And if, if you do like it, please scroll down to hit the five-star rating button. All that stuff really helps. And honestly, just, just sharing it with your friends and getting the message out there helps a lot. So thank you so much for tuning in and don't forget that training changes behavior.