L.O.G. 164 Words That Influence Behavior

Okay, good morning, Greg. How are you on this Friday morning that we're recording this?

I have listed my name as Vesuvius for this episode because, sadly, my bathroom is Pompeii. I'm still not feeling well, Brian. We had one hell of a trip, and the fallout, literally and figuratively, from that trip is still kicking my ass. We've been on the road for two and a half months, on and off, at different venues. Finally, it caught up to the big guy. Shelly said this week, she goes, "You got that Stephen King Thinner thing," because it's not good.

I, this entire week, I have slept until this thing called an alarm has gone off. Greg, I actually never used one. No, I've been sleeping. And then, yeah, I had the same stomach issue that cleared up for me a few days ago, but all good. I mean, it was bound to happen with how much we were traveling. So, yeah.

So, everyone listening right now, we've got a great, great episode today. We think it's going to be great. We hope you all... you may choose to tune out now, we're still going to talk.

So, today, our big, big, big picture we're talking about is airplanes, First Amendment, comedians, university professors, and a whole litany of other topics, so to speak. But all under... anyone who's been listening to us knows we talk about behavior, and we talk about intent. And we don't care what your motive is, your motivations, your ideology. We stay out of that stuff. We let all the pundits that suck but make a lot of money talk about that stuff. That's fine for them to do. Doesn't really go anywhere, but hey, it's entertaining.

We don't get into that. And anyone listening has heard us use the term before that most people want their say, not their way. However, we think it is important to discuss how words, speech, the way people talk influence people's behavior and what the meaning is sometimes behind it. You get a lot of people say, "Well, you can't say this," or, "You can say that," and a lot of times they're wrong without a good understanding of the First Amendment. So we're going to talk about that a little bit, and what some of those elements mean, and what you can and can't do.

Some of that's changed now, I think, Greg, because... well, it hasn't, the law hasn't changed. The mediums have changed versus, you know, a town hall is now... is Twitter a town hall now? Is social media, is it, because you get it instantly and there's this dialogue? So that's the interesting, that's the complex part of this. But case law and stare decisis is what it is in the Supreme Court. Like, you could use my dear friend, good use.

Yeah, so, you know what, that made me smile, Brian. Legal precedent is important. And so you can go back to that and go, "Well, this is what that means." Now, it's what... what the Supreme Court justice or any court's job is to do is to interpret that based on today's situation that's in front of them, right? So, we're sort of doing that same thing, talking about some events that have occurred, using the kind of the legal standard, but also talking about, "What does that mean today? How does that influence behavior?" Because some people can get away with saying things that other people can't, and a lot of people don't like that. But it's important to distinguish that there are different standards based on things like the location you're in when you talk, the time, the venue, the intent, who you are as an individual, what your role is in society. Absolutely, those things matter.

So that's big picture. It took me a couple minutes to get through just what preface we're talking about today. So I'll throw it to you to start, Greg, because this came again, our car conversations or phone call conversations before talking to a client or something, where we kind of bat this stuff around, or text message thread where we go back and forth and I go, "No, you can't say..." they go, "Yeah, but, Brian!" So, true life to Greg, it is.

It's a true argument, and folks, if you could have seen the text chain on that one, because we were in the green room for another gig, and Brian, you and I were pretty vicious on that one, based on the fact that I was not taking a personal opinion approach. I was taking a legal precedent approach. And you know, and then I took the defense, I took the other side and said, "Well, hang on, it takes a lot to string those things together," and I got it. But what do attorneys do?

Yeah, exactly. We were kind of doing that. We were playing like kind of offense, defense, prosecution, defense. However, Brian, wouldn't you agree that those types of tabletops, those type of texts, those type of conversations are truly essential to fully exploring an issue?

And let me give you a brief example. Okay, so and we can deep dive, but let's talk about the gosh darn Dave Chappelle thing that comes out of New York Comedy Club. Okay, so everyone listening, that was Dave Chappelle doing a comedy set, doing an act. And a guy got up out of the crowd, rushed him, knocked him over. He got, he learned a lot. The security there tried to teach him a lesson. I saw some of the photos that did not look well. But he also, it's important to understand, he also had on him a knife. It was weird because it was like a gun that, I think you probably pull the trigger and a knife comes out the front. It's some weird thing. But either way, it's a deadly weapon, let's talk about that.

But it's important to set up the circumstances. So, suspect is Isaiah Lee. A suspect had on him a weapon, or what could be construed as a weapon, but it must not have been brandished, and it must not have been the type of assault we're thinking because the DA's office says, "Hey, it's only a misdemeanor assault." That's an important standard. We didn't use that in the assault.

Right, right.

So, let's talk though about what America does and what the world does sometimes very quickly. So the minute Chappelle's attack came out, you can't go on any social media site, I would know, I'm not on them, but I mean, Will Smith, the Will Smith slap and Chris Rock incident in March.

Now, here's my thing. When you take a look at the two, the only connected fiber is a great comment against the LADA (Los Angeles District Attorney), and for sanity, where the owner of the comedy club, which is a chain of comedy clubs that a lot of people appear at, said, "Will Smith got an Oscar after he slapped Chris Rock, and now this L.A. residents deserve to live there in L.A. violence-free." Well, first of all, that's a platitude, because we know that that's not happening. Second of all, let's not conflate a slap or a misdemeanor assault with the blatant robberies, homicides, and all that other stuff that's going on, and it's not just L.A., folks, okay?

But my thing is this unreasonable jump to connect things and say, "The Will Smith incident is why all this is coming out." Now, I'm not a scholar, Brian, by any stretch of imagination, but I think back, wasn't Bob Marley shot while he was on stage? Or am I way off on this one? Dimebag Darrell from Pantera, you see what I'm trying to say? So, do we need to go back now? Look, I would tell you that if we just took a minute and paused the call and/or the Zoom and went off and searched, we could find that. Did anybody do any due diligence on this? Did anybody take a look at these tapers and say, "Hey, precedent has been set another way"? No.

So that's my first argument: shut the [explicit] up unless you take a look at the big picture. Second thing was, okay, I would argue—and this is where we're going to fight—I would argue that while a comedy club is where you go to get insulted, so you better have a thicker skin, I would also claim that certain words are fighting words. Yes, so you've got to be prepared that if you go in there and you start launching a diatribe about something, it may reach the threshold of violence. So, all I'm...

There are what the Supreme Court has classified as fighting words, and because I, I want to make sure I had some of the definitions on this, so it's not just me explaining it. But it's similar to what falls under kind of incitement. But it said, "Fighting words are not protected by the First Amendment. Fighting words means words which would likely make the person to whom they are addressed commit an act of violence." Now that goes back to the Chaplinsky case with an altercation police officer. He shouted, "You're a goddamn racketeer and a damned fascist." So the idea is, "The very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace," but "immediate lawless action" is what I like to take away. And that where incitement comes in.

But that, I would say almost like incitement is the opposite side of the same coin, where incitement is me, I'm getting you riled up, Greg, to go commit violence on someone else. But like the fighting words is me talking to you, Greg, and you get so angry that you come after me. But I go back to what the venue was of a comedy place like that. The whole point is they're making jokes. Like, that is the whole entire thing. I think people do this all the time when they're like, "Oh, that comedian, they've had the craziest life, listen to all their stuff." And I'm like, "Those are jokes." And they're like, "Yeah, but like..." I was like, "That story likely never happened. It's a joke and it's hilarious."

But they're crafted, they crafted it, and over time, over time, especially Chappelle is at the highest level of the game, one of my absolute favorites. So, how long did it take for him to make those jokes? It wasn't an off-the-cuff comment. It wasn't during an interview afterwards where he just said something funny or something, it wasn't at dinner, it was in public. It's called an act. You, in the audience, any reasonable person would understand that you sitting in the audience, that's what you're there for. That's likely going to happen in a comedy act. It wasn't like the example of what's his name, remember the guy from Seinfeld, Kramer, who, in the middle of his bit...

Right.

Yeah, so in the middle of his bit he gets heckled and he changes his act and starts dropping F-bombs, and that's out of his act. Yes, so that would be... now, if something happened there, that would be different because it wasn't part of it. So even though the venue is identical.

So, Brian, I would add this. And I've got a prop today. I don't often have...

Oh, you have a prop?

Here is my prop today. You know what the remote allows us to do? You've got it. And so, as long as you have... now, what is this, folks, if you're listening or watching, this is gosh darn de-escalation 101, okay? If you have the chance to get up and walk out because you're offended by the speech, Brian, if you have the chance to change the channel or turn down the volume, then that's a form of escalation. So you have the right to do that. So did Will Smith. And it violates probably the customs, courtesies, and protocols of the club if you were to stand up and yell something back. But at least I understand that there's a point, because now they're just going, "Hey, you got, you got to go. That violates our policies here."

But you go back to the Will Smith. If he had stood up and said, "Hey, [explicit] shut the [explicit] up when you're talking about this!" Like that situation would have been completed. Is that inappropriate? Yeah, because again, it's a bit. But can you come back from that? Can you have a dialogue? Chris Rock could say right there, "Hey, man, it's a joke, I get you. Let's talk afterwards. I'm in the middle of an act here. There's people watching on television." Like, you can, you can, you can walk that back, you can have a conversation. What you're not allowed to do is walk up and slap a man in the face for it.

Like that. Precisely. So, let's go, let's get like, you know, the face of a clock. So you just went from noon to midnight, and that's perfect. So let's go, boom, one tick right at midnight. If Isaiah Lee was arrested for jumping up on the stage and assaulting Dave Chappelle, then Will Smith, because it has nothing to do with anything, should have been arrested for a misdemeanor assault for jumping up on the stage and insulting Chris Rock.

Here's the problem: we think, because there's somebody else, here we go with an inflated status because of a person's ego or self-image, or his public image...

Yeah, social image. Yeah, influence.

But you can't do that. Yeah, you can't do that. Here's the thing, there's a societal standard for right and good, and there's also the legal standard. You know how much I love the law. But here's the thing that really bothered me. So later, when when Will Smith wins the Oscar, okay, and by the way, it was for the Venus and Serena Williams film, he does the dad role. Haven't seen it.

Yeah, and he's great, he's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I watch I, Robot every time. Independence Day is a classic. We saw Independence Day in Colombia in Spanish, if you remember that.

Oh, that's right. The hotel room was on a continuous loop. So, but the idea is that when he got up, he apologized to the Academy, and I understand that he apologized to the Academy, he also apologized to other nominees. Brian, that doesn't go far enough. No.

Okay, here's the thing. I don't care where you felt you were, he should have apologized to Chris Rock for his behavior. Should apologize to the American people, and he should have walked off the stage and turned himself in so the prosecutor could have given a personal bond. This isn't a case where he needed to be bonded out with a million dollars bail, right? Surely, right. He could have done it. I would have applauded him. I would have stood up and said that, you know, he went too far, and now he reigned it in.

And I think the investigative shows... I know there were people that were trying to make that happen during that show, like, "He's got to go! He's going to get her, we're calling the police!" And then no one did it. I bet it was even some of his own party, "Okay, we got to get him out of here." Yeah, and he should not have been allowed to continue that. He should have been escorted at a minimum. "You got to go right now. Yeah, right now, you're gone. Yeah, we'll figure this out later, but you're gone. We're in the middle of something right now, and you just, you did something so wildly inappropriate on live television."

So, listen, this is the same argument, and I don't want to start things because it'll be a future episode. Same argument, I'm sorry, I'm still sick. Same argument about the gosh darn SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) leak. Okay, you can't create a duplicitous standard, right? If the information that you're putting out there is likely to incite imminent lawless action, and it did, and it's going to, then your behavior needs to be reined in and it needs to be regulated. So, so that's a hard argument.

Yeah, so here's the, that's, that's, that's one of the situations that involved a little bit more complexity. You know, did someone break the law or they just break a policy or something what they were supposed to do? That would be a whole separate episode. But that, to the... I kind of want to get back on with what we were going because that, we could literally do that for an hour of everything. That's why I brought up stare decisis. But I know it's supposed to be an important principle.

What everyone will do is say, "Well, now, because Will Smith did that, people are going to feel it's acceptable." And you brought up a great comment a few minutes ago, where you said, "Well, but those things have always happened." And they are. But this is what we do.

I remember they objected in a violent manner, they came right up on stage. So...

Exactly. So the idea is what, what a lot of times what we do as humans is we go, "Okay, what happened here?" And then everyone takes this historical approach, but they only go as far as they want. They go, "Oh, here. Everyone picks a point and goes, 'Well, here, see, when this happened, everything changed.' And this is what not caused it, but because we allowed this to happen or because there was something occurred here that now normalized that behavior." It's like, you can go back for how many times have someone come up on stage? How many comedians have someone come up on stage to try and get in their face or call them out or heckle them or knock them over, hit? Like, it happened last night, it'll happen tonight.

Wasn't that Colombia where years ago where the goalie let up the goal and they lost the World Cup and they were... someone executed him in the street, I mean, a homicide?

You're exactly right. So, so it's not unprecedented, this is not the first incident, it's just most more notorious, you get what I'm trying to say? And I don't want to bring up notorious but my good friend Biggie Smalls, he got gunned down. Okay, his stage was the street where he started. Take a look at Tupac, Tupac was gunned down, his stage was the street. We don't know the outcomes of those, but it's a rub, people said words, those words led to the imminent lawless action in those instances of homicide.

So this is... right, that's unscripted, that's just me popping into my head with this video. And this is what's not protected under the First Amendment, something what's called incitement. Let me just define that as being... you set it right there, but what the Supreme Court said is basically that it's not protected and it's considered incitement if the words that you're saying, you know, if they're likely to cause and intended to cause imminent lawless action. And that's important. So if I'm talking to a group of people, I said, "Hey, tomorrow we're going to go take this city hall down and we're going to stand up." And it's like, okay, and I'm that, that would be protected speech because it's not really imminent. Now, my intent is maybe lawless action, but it has to meet these criteria, and each case is a little bit different.

But let's draw that back too, Brian, and say, we're in a Wavy Gravy's Taco Stand line. You bump into me and spill lemonade on me, and I turn around and I go, "I swear to God..." [explicit] and you go, "Hey, come get some," and then we're fighting. Those types of things, if I incite you with the right word at the right time, every one of us has a personal trigger. An argument can be made this would be made for whatever fighting words, yeah, on that one.

And this, each case has to be kind of decided independently. But that goes directly to the central point that you're making. So let's take those words from the stage and let's go 35,000 feet above the stage, okay? And now let's be sitting in coach where we are the 46F, Brian, so every time the guy opens the [explicit] door it smacks him in the forehead and wakes you up, right? And the person next to you just can't shut the [explicit] up, and so you hit your flight attendant button, the flight attendant comes over, he starts that thing, you get what I'm trying to say?

Now, listen, that escalation of just invoking the need for a flight attendant to intervene at airline 30,000 foot on a federally regulated industry, Brian, you're committing a crime with your words and you're not allowed to act in a specific manner. But what's happened when we've cheapened the act of flying for business or pleasure? What's happened when we have allowed alcohol to run unchecked through those situations, Brian? Okay, so Orville and Wilbur didn't have to contend with passengers, you get what I'm trying to say? But ever since there's been passengers, I'm sure there's been unruly passengers, but why now? Because people forget that a location is specifically important to where an incident is going to be judged. And yeah, at the airport you can't say "bomb," right? Okay, but you can get away with saying "go [explicit] yourself." Okay, but you start saying that on an airplane, Brian, when that airplane is in flight, now you've got a completely different situation.

Right.

So the environment and the venue will change the meaning and the significance of what you're saying, and that's important to understand. Like, again, even if you took exactly what Dave Chappelle was saying and you put it at someone on an airplane saying that, pissing off some people around them, that's completely different. That's absolutely completely different than a comedian on stage. And it's important to make these distinctions. Now, it's still what people are going to do because the reason why we're bringing all some of these examples up, and there's other ones that we will talk about, is if there's enough of that communication of someone saying something over and over again, will that cause someone to go commit an illegal act? Right? So like, remember what an illegal act and assault is an illegal act, right? We're thinking like riot, we're not talking about...

Right. No.

It doesn't have to be something like that, it can be something as simple as...

Yeah, and a simple misdemeanor. Your comment, your comment. Let's take the same one that we took from the stage, went up to the plane, and Brian, let's do it. We're at your daughter's wedding, you know, contracted in the future, 15 years, we're at your daughter's wedding and Chappelle happens to be in the audience and stands up and starts off on the trans thing with a person that's attending the wedding. A completely different dynamic. You see what I'm trying to say? So, so the outcomes of that venue at that time and at that place matter, you know? And that's what we're trying to make sure that we keep in that central corridor.

No, it could be you saying, what it's doing too, is there's limits to free speech because words have meaning and you are responsible for what you say. Now, again, when it comes to responsibility, that changes based on who you are, based on the location, based on the intent behind the meaning. Give me an example of that.

This is, this is what gets into the big arguments about about Twitter and about a lot of social media, right? Because they're private companies. They can, they can, they have the right to say, "Now, we don't like what you're saying, you can't come on here." Yeah, they absolutely do. And no one reads their End User License Agreement. No one actually reads all the fine print when you sign up for those things. But you assign to that and there's standards of conduct and there's things that say, "You will not do this, you will not do that." And guess what, the company who owns that, who's letting you use that for free, they get to say what comes and goes. And that's, that's, that's clear, there is no argument on that one.

Now, what people are trying to say is, "Is Twitter the new town hall?" That's a valid point. I think philosophically or, you know what I mean, like, I would agree there.

Yeah, because it's legally not, legally at all whatsoever.

So you want to go start passing more laws, which I'm generally... anytime someone says, "You know, they should make a law that says," I just immediately forget whatever comes after that because...

Right. Yeah.

...that's what you want, more, more laws on the books.

There you go, you're right.

But the idea is what people say has different meaning. So if with me, Brian, on there, who's hardly ever on Twitter and has almost no followers, I say something, yeah, the effect of my words aren't going to go very far. But if you're someone very, very popular on there, what you say influences people's actions, it directly influences their behavior and their actions.

I absolutely agree.

So here's the thing, although you can be on there, you don't really have a responsibility. I wish people felt that they had a responsibility when they have an audience, but a lot of people really don't. But it changes. So if you're, you know, Elon Musk, who just bought up a large percentage of Twitter, and you can say whatever on there, but then people go, "Well, hey, you shouldn't be able to say some of these things because you're influencing other people." But he doesn't, he can. Like, that's the thing. Now, does that change if you're a politician? Because you have a responsibility to the people who elected you, all the people in the United States, not just your constituents who elected you.

Okay, that's what about because your kid goes to school at a public school and you're not there every day, and they, they directly influence that child's behavior, their actions, the way they think, the way they treat others? That's a direct one-on-one, far, far more direct than a Twitter comment, right? A shout-out or an airport comment, yeah. A shout-out to the void of social media, or a group of people, or a group of adults, or on an airplane, like, now that completely changes.

So this is where the complexity comes in, Greg, and they have, you know, the Supreme Court has defined these different terms about what incitement is, what fighting words are, what obscenity is, defamation, there's commercial speech, there's a whole bunch of types.

Perjury. Every one of those is a protected speech category. You're right.

And so, you technically can go on the news and start spouting off anything you want, they could be complete lies, you can make stuff up. And if you're careful, you kind of won't really get reined in or get in trouble for it. Meaning, if I keep it general enough about maybe a large group of people, that might be free speech protected by free speech. But now, if I make up a bunch of stuff specifically, if I go on the news and make up, say, "Greg Williams, I've seen him rob 16 liquor stores and kill three people and he did this and he did that." You said, "You're ready to keep that quiet, it's out there in the void."

Now, if it happens in a different country, is it still...?

So, but the idea is that that's different. I can't go on there and say those, like, meaning you have recourse on that. You can sue me, you can sue me for slander, you can sue me... I'm not going to jail for that, but you can, you can, there's tort laws.

You're exactly right, Brian. And there's two... you said recourse: legal recourse and redress. Folks, look up redress later, that's part of the First Amendment, yeah. Huge, huge important standards.

But let me take you just a little bit off center, because what you're talking about now, I love it, is talking about lying, knowingly lying, to get something, okay? Which is different than accidentally creating a falsehood, and it's different than intentionally using fighting words. Now, fighting words, stop for a minute. Don't get in a box, don't go into that individual ice cube tray. Remember the whole tray gets filled at the same time. What I'm saying is there was a girl, and I believe it was in Texas, but it might have been Oklahoma, and who gives a [explicit] that talked the boy that kept saying that he had suicidal feelings. She legally, the standard said that she was guilty. So she talked that boy into himself.

I remember that. Okay, yeah, yeah.

So, because she was convicted, we can talk about it, because she was convicted. The court found that her words caused that death. So you see what I'm saying about proximate cause, Brian? You see me saying about a link? It took them a while, but they established a link that said her words so demeaned this person. And somebody right now is listening and saying, "Hey, I heard about that little kid that got bullied at school that committed suicide." Brian, those words are the same words that we're talking about. So I would say the category is parallel and thinly, like an onion layer, that we're talking about speech that you know, that's lies, that is likely to incent, incentivize people to do something bad, and directed speech that doesn't have to be lies, it just, it has to be so influential that a person like that young kid went and committed suicide. Right?

Yeah. Okay, absolutely. And but you brought up with that case of the girl who influenced that kid to commit suicide, you brought up the specific term that it fell under, she was the proximate cause. Yeah, but but he likely had other contributing...

Oh, yeah, of course, right, of course.

So that, that's an important distinction too, because there's all kinds of contributing factors. So let's say I am angry at the new, you know, sandwich at Wendy's and I'm so angry that I'm going to go attack a Wendy's. Well, there's a lot of contributing factors to that. So, meaning, obviously I probably have some sort of mental health issue, right? If I'm that angry. Two, I have, maybe I've been, I've been bullied my whole life and I feel like I've done nothing. Three, I was indoctrinated to hate fried chicken sandwiches since I was at birth. I've got all these things boiling.

Morning, you were assaulted by that guy dressed as a chicken flipping the sign.

Right, right. It's called the Family Guy, yeah, the chicken fight scene. And then, and then, you know what, I, you know, see on the news that, "Oh, Wendy's came out with a new chicken sandwich," and I go in there and shove it to Wendy's. That was the, that was the proximate cause right there of me going and doing that. Well, at one, that's a, it's a ridiculous situation, right? But that, that's the point to show this stuff that there's a lot of other contributing factors. I would have to, some attorney would have to make the link saying, "Yeah, but because you released that chicken sandwich, you led to the death of these employees because my client..." Like, now this is a ridiculous legal argument. And they're saying trying to...

For that. Yes.

That's what they'll say in court. "But for that instant," you know? So this is where on news stations, blogs, the internet, social media, where things get a little complex because many of the things that people watch and consume, the information they consume can become a contributing factor to them acting out in some sort of way. And it could be a major contributing factor. Now, there's the problem is there's all kinds of contributing factors. So an attorney can say, "Well, yeah, but a news anchor could be on spouting off something that's complete lies and BS." And then someone could take that information and then go act on it. And then an attorney's going to say, "Well, but because of this host said this," exactly, "you know, that my client went and did this and this is why, and now this is the approximate cause of it."

Which is, that was one of the cases of the, remember the Fox News case where they said a judge ruled someone sued Fox News and Tucker Carlson, and the judge said, "No, no reasonable human being would believe that this is, this is anything other than..." I forget the term they use, but, you know, not... they didn't say parody, they said something about like...

Well, entertainment, right?

Yeah, they said entertainment. But I, I, I, I forget what the actual term was, is that no reasonable person would believe that it was "exaggeration and non-literal commentary," which is an interesting term, non-literal commentary, because a lot of speech could fall under that, that's just making a joke or something too, right? It's non-literal commentary. So there's, there's ways around this stuff now. But on the other end, they got another lawsuit because he said a bunch of stuff about some voting machines and now a judge said, "Yeah, you can't say that, that's libel, that's slanderous, that's definitely like that, that part." You can, now, although not a criminal act, you are fall under tort law and someone can sue you for doing that.

Precisely, civilly. So let's not mistake news for news. So when we see something that says CNN or Fox, yeah, bucket, I don't know. It's entertainment, right? Yeah. And you're at this point, yeah, yeah.

Let's go back to Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton's got caught up in a scrum, and Hillary Clinton looked straight at the camera. Yeah, but if the one in Europe, she looked straight at the camera and said, "I agree that it was a willful misrepresentation of the truth." Okay? That's one of them. Every once in a while when I catch Shelly in a white lie, she looks at me and she looks straight in my face and says, "Greg, that was a willful misrepresentation of the truth."

So that was the one about her like dodging sniper fire and the grenades came rolling, something like it was just a junk story. And that was the same as the Brian Williams, right, the news?

Yeah, exactly.

We all do that though. Listen, there's a thing in psychology, and I can't think of it right now because I'm a bad human and I'm sick as [explicit], but when somebody plagiarizes, the difference between plagiarism and this psychological standard is intent. So sometimes you read something or see a film or a commercial or something, you're so inspired by it that a year later you're laying in bed and all of a sudden you sit up and you go, "Eureka, I found it!" And I'll give you an example. The two words Anne Frank and Frankenstein came up in my head one day, and I go, "Man, Anne Frankenstein, wow, that would be a great thing!" And Shelly goes, "Man, you should write that down." And we looked it up and it's everywhere, and Frankenstein is a series of books and comics.

So you think though in your mind, you go, "It's you."

Yeah, because you did it. Yeah, you see what I'm trying to say? And so you, you maybe read that somewhere 10 years ago and that popped in your head. Yeah, but psychologically there's a term for that. You know, with biases, there's probably a hundred terms for it, but the idea is that, Brian, intentionally going, "Hey, I'm going to take that idea and run with it on my own," that's illegal, okay? So those type of connections and words are bad as well. So when you saw Brian Williams, or when you see the news do that, sometimes they're misrepresenting themselves incidentally, and what I mean by that is they had this amazing emotional experience and they conflated other experiences around it to create one dream. Why? Because we're the center actors in our lives. And guess what, nothing [explicit] up a story better than witnesses. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden you got to walk all your comments back. Sorry for my language, folks, but we've all been there, we've all done the fish story.

Nothing ruins a good story like another witness. But they've got it, and that's, but that's psychologically overtime involvement.

Right. Okay. Yeah. Here's the problem. Malcolm Gladwell uses that literally and says, "Well, let's not..." Yeah, he literally says, "Well, the facts aren't as important as the story." It's like, "Well, but, but, but historically, you're not writing a novel though, right?" For President Plato said that one time, do you remember? You can go back to the Romans and you know, you can either go to the reading wall and find out what the Senate posted for the news for the day. But you know what was more popular? "Hey, you got to go hear my friend Greg talk about it. He's going to come over for dinner and he's going to tell you what the news." So the commentary on it was always more popular. It goes all the way back thousands of years. So that's why the news, it's a telephone game too, because remember the runner that was coming with the news? A lot of times the runner had to adjust the facts of the caper because what happened to a lot of those news runners, Brian? They were murdered when it was bad news. Yeah, so it didn't take long for them to go, "Yeah, you might want to soften that a little bit," you know?

Yeah, exactly. So I, I totally get it. So, hey, I want to throw in one, I'd like to go back and talk about how influential teachers can be, but I'd also like to throw in the dystopian Orwellian Ministry of Truth. So, yeah, and the idea is, folks, the one comment, Brian, specifically, is when they were talking about this Disinformation Governance Board, and it's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. But DHS, we love you, we still want to work with you. But listen, this is one of those... listen to this quote, though, Brian. Yeah, this is one that falls short. Okay, this means, "Okay, that the words of someone voicing an opinion that others do not agree with could be considered just as much an act of violence as the actual violence itself." That's a quote, Brian.

Here's my worry, here's my worry. Yeah, we already have enough laws on the books. When calm heads prevail, where's the right arena to address these situations? That's in a court of law, Brian, either on the criminal side or the civil side, but it's in a court of law, not at 30,000 feet, you know, not by jumping up on the stage, not by fleeing the cop at a traffic stop. That's just my point on that is to make sure we do address that because, you know, I, I get even more, what do you think about it?

Yeah, it's... so I understand people are trying to figure out, "Well, hey, there's a lot of bad info out there, you got to sift through it." So what is the historical precedent for that? Well, there's been a lot of bad info out there for a really long [explicit] time, and I think we've done pretty well. So since the first human spoke to another human, you know, things have been, been gets a little bit right. So, and I don't like it because that could eventually be used as a tool.

Like, yeah.

And so I, I want to be laser focused on this. The whole idea behind the Disinformation Governance Board was when they were interviewing or interrogating subjects at our nation's borders, the DHS would be able to leak that information virtually immediately so that anybody that needed that information, like it was, "Hey, listen, they're planning a coup," or, "There's an ambush plan," or this or that. That was the whole idea behind it is they could take that, that what could have been classified information and get it through the system more quickly to people that need it.

Right.

Here's the problem with that, Brian, I just want to make sure I briefly touch on that. You remember Don Yeager, great, great, dear friend, Don Yeager? So Don Yeager went to wherever the area is, and I can't think of it. So if you go east of Lubbock and south of gosh darn Albuquerque, west Albuquerque, there's an area of the Four Corners there, but to the right where they found different tools. And Yeager would go back down there with his good friend Ted Turner and some other people and dig. And Yeager sent me photos, Brian, and there were photos of some dinosaur that had walked in the riverbed in the mud, and then there was a disruption where the two pieces of earth pushed up this way and now this slab fell down. So you imagine, folks that aren't watching me, upheaval of earth. Yeah, one of the slabs of earth fell down. So on that slab, the footprints were on a 90-degree angle to the ground, and on a slab found a little further down because there was a footprint above. So you know what they created? They created that village's dragon, right? It could violate the laws of gravity, and even though it was this heavy, it did all that other stuff. That's what I'm afraid of when we get a disinformation thing.

Listen, misinformation is healthy. It's healthy when it's discovered and brought out into the clear today and we find out that it was a lie. So, so I think that actually doesn't violate freedom of speech and actually emboldens our laws that protect the freedom of speech. I just want to...

I, yeah, it's a kind of question. And I'm an obviously ardent supporter of the First Amendment of the Constitution. I firmly believe you should be able to say whatever you want, so long as it doesn't fall within what the legal standard already is and what it means. So if it's not libelous, if it's not inflammatory, if it's not considered incitement, fighting words—those are all established and can be figured out. When there's gray areas where people aren't sure, guess what? It becomes case law and it goes through the courts, and that, that's fine. I, I think, I think it's just, it's just fine. You anytime you stifle, "Oh, we can't let people say that because, you know, that they might be taken the wrong way." Oh, well, you know what I mean? That, that's great. It, it, that, that could happen.

The and here's the issue of all this stuff, and I've seen it time and time and time and time again, I don't go back for history, is oftentimes when someone in a leadership or powerful position either withholds information, doesn't give the full picture, or blatantly lies, wherever it falls in there, whether it's misinformation or disinformation. That, that act is, is when it's done because someone thinks that they're doing the right thing, meaning, "You know what? We better keep this from people because we don't want them to do X, Y, and Z." Any time that has happened, any time that has happened, once it's found out, the result of what happens is far worse than what they were trying to...

Absolutely.

So, always so much worse. The cover-up in any of these conspiracies or scandals is always, always worse, well, typically worse than what happened, right? I mean, it's like you created this whole nonsense thing because you were trying to cover up or not let people find out about this thing over here. But, but this thing over here is nowhere near as bad as what happened from your actions. And that's the big problem. Is like, I, I think people are, you know, I don't know, everyone's talking about there's, there's less truth out there. I would say it's a complete opposite. What Twitter allows you so much... you can't, you, you can't, you're overwhelmed.

Think about our podcast, Greg. We can't hide. If anyone wants to know about what we really think and what we really do and what our thoughts, feelings, you, you could sit here with a bunch of experts and analyze us and they would get us dead on. Why? Because this is our 164th episode, which means at a minimum we have 164 hours of you and I talking, just openly talking. Well, here's what happens when you do that, you can't hide if you're putting on an act, if you're lying, if you're full of [explicit]. Somewhere in there you're going to go, "Oh, wait a minute, this is [explicit], [explicit] right now. Let's go back to episode 107." Right? You can't keep that up. You can't keep that up. You can keep it up over one, you can keep it up through 10, maybe 20. But, but over time, what happens is you become more honest. And that's what Twitter is too. It's because it's an immediate reaction.

Now, people have a bad reaction to words now. And here's my thing where it goes back to the courts and testimony and legal precedent, Greg. Part of the reason why people, I think why people get so upset when they read something on social media is because people are saying things that you typically have in conversations. So in the context of a conversation, Greg, we might say something that might be a little inappropriate or whatever, make a joke, or even if it's not that, but you know from your experience, what happens when that conversation gets read aloud in court in a very dry image? Well, it takes on a whole different meaning. You're like, "Oh my God, certainly. Whoa, we didn't really mean it that way. Hang on." So when you're reading something that someone would typically only say because you're willing to say more on social media in the anonymity and the void than you are face to face with a person. Some of the things that people comment on, you'd never say that to the person if they were standing in front of you.

Precisely, the anonymity and isolation.

But here's the thing. Now you read that and you go, you're putting yourself in the presence of having a conversation with that individual, so you're offended by it. When it's like, people can say what they want. My problem is, is when it jumps to the point of what did you do and what is your intent? But what did you actually do? And intent matters. And that's my big thing about social media and all that stuff is, what is your intent behind this post? What is your intent behind this comment? And how many times have people on here heard me say when you're reading through that stuff, go, "What is this person's likely intent? What do you think they meant by it, not how you're taking it?" And I think that helps us understand things a little bit better, whether that's so glad, well, it's a joke or, you know what I mean?

Let me, let me go back once. Listen to me, you said something that we don't want to walk away from for all the coppers in the audience, anybody in a legal profession, or if you're working, for example, at a school as a teacher. When people make statements to impeach a person's statement, you first have to pin them to a statement. So the reason that you make a person make a statement or do a witness statement or write a report is because your memory does not get better over time. Now, the way to do that in criminalistics is you ask a person, "And when was that?" "Okay, and then you got out of the car?" "Yeah, I got out of the car." "Well, take me from there." And now you get the person's story, Brian. Then outside the room, the investigation is occurring, and they come back and they go, "That's impossible, this guy was here, the car was never there. We have a camera of this." You see what I'm trying to say?

So the idea is, your point is well taken about how many episodes we have because a person could impeach our testimony by going back and saying, "Hey, you know, he said this, there aren't two sides of your mouth." The only person that knows there's two sides of your mouth is a dentist, they can testify to that legally. Every one of us, if you say something and then counteract it or countermand it, then I want to know why, unless you find new science or evidence.

Right. Yeah, it's your opinion. You update, you're transparent, update your... And a scientist or a good human will update their opinions. And we, we've done that with different topics where then someone says, "Hey, did you know that this occurs?" And we went, "Oh my God, no, I didn't. Oh, now knowing that, I wouldn't..."

Yeah, knowing what we know now. Exactly.

No, I know it's such a great thing. But that, that's an important distinction. And I, you know, I have a huge tolerance for what I would... that, that a tolerance for what upsets me. Meaning, I let people say whatever, I'm all good with it. It's, it's what you do and what you mean by it, right? Because I'm like, people go, "Wow, that, that comment doesn't offend you," or, "You that doesn't know him." Like, "No, really doesn't. Because that person just wants to have their say. You know, let him, let them, let them cool off. Let them, let them come down from a little bit. Let them de-escalate themselves by getting that all out." And then I go, "Okay." Because you see control of you, you've seen me do that. Okay, go, go on and just deadpan, "Okay, please tell me more about that. Oh, wow, why did it make you feel that way?" And then they, they end up working themselves out of the situation sometimes, unless they don't. And I know, "Okay, this is different, this person wants to have their way, not just their say. And I may have to improve my defensive posture, or I may have to walk away to further de-escalate, or I may be dealing with somebody that's got mental health issues."

Yeah, Brian, that's how you establish your baseline. So you did is through the rock in the pond. Great, great.

Yeah, so, so now that we're, we're 45 minutes into the episode, so the only people listening now are the people who really enjoy it. There is a lot of talk right now, Greg, a lot of people commenting, especially when it comes to law enforcement and criminal justice system, and anything law enforcement related in our country and how we handle this stuff.

One, let me caveat this. I hate that we have to [explicit] caveat everything, but reform is constant and necessary, and we always need to adapt and get better at how we prosecute, treat criminals, police. That it's just a, I look at that, that ball's always in motion, right? It should always be in motion as things move. Doesn't mean we make rapid changes. We take what we know works and we build upon that. And then we get rid of stuff that we know isn't working.

But there's a, like even university professors, there's entire industries coming out saying, "You know, law enforcement is inherently criminal, it's inherently evil, it's inherently bad. You know, we're going to defund the police, the police are the problem." So now, has that led, because there's, even the FBI came out, the Director of the [explicit] FBI came out and said, "What we're not talking about is that police officers are being murdered at a higher rate than we've ever seen before." And he was very clear when he used the term "murder," right? That was not an accident. And said, "Hey, this is what's happening."

So all this talk now, you could make the argument that because of all this talk that's out there, because of these big talking heads and these people that make a lot of money off their grift of selling this junk, saying, you know, that's causing some of these things to happen, meaning criminals are feeling more emboldened, knowing they're, they're not likely going to get in trouble. Now, they know if they kill a cop, they will. But, but meaning even just basic level of crime, different types of theft and burglaries and carjackings and all that stuff, they're going, "Well, it's kind of, they're not really coming after us right now. And everyone thinks that the cops are evil, so this is going to lead to an increase of crime."

Here's the thing, it's hard to make that statement over a one-month period, hard over a six-month period. Now, we get a year over, when you get two years, when you get three years, when you get five years of comparative data and see compare how the narrative has changed, totally, what's actually happening on the ground? Well, now you have something. You know, it's, it sucks because you have to look at it. What did we say when a lot of the stuff started happening? "Well, is it a blip on the radar or is this going to be a trend?" Well, what's happened over the last couple years? It's a [explicit] trend now.

So the, the, this whole discussion kind of started when you sent me an article, which I, I didn't even read the article because I saw the face on it and knew exactly who he was and what he does. And I said, "Look, it's a grift." You said, "Yeah, but look, he went on the news and he does interviews. And here's an article saying that police are inherently evil, they're bad for society, they're this. That will cause someone to go and attack a cop." And I see, and you said, "This shouldn't be protected by the First Amendment." I said, "Well, hang on, he's making generalizations. I don't agree with his message, but he's not calling on a specific person." And then you again said, "Yes, but someone could make the case, a lawyer could make the case saying this is what he's doing, this is what it led to." So that's kind of where this discussion started. And I think it's an important discussion because, what it goes back to what I brought up a little bit earlier about what is your responsibility, what level of responsibility you have when making comments when you have an audience? You have a level of responsibility. Whether you choose to accept that level of responsibility or not is on you, but you have a responsibility. I don't care if you're a social media influencer peddling some new product that you're trying to sell and make money off of, right? You have a responsibility to those people. Now, legally, you might not. I, I think morally and ethically you do, but that's dependent on the individual.

Well, let's talk about legal then. Let's talk about legal for a second. So, using laws to regulate lies doesn't implicitly violate freedom of speech, right? And what we have is a Boston professor that is making what is obviously lies and saying statements that aren't factual, and those might influence a decision. Now let's, let's look at the law very briefly and say that, okay, perjury—and by the way, perjury is under oath, folks—but the idea is that we understand that perjury is illegal because it predictably can affect the outcome of a jury's decision, right? So they make it illegal. You're under oath, you knew or you should have knew better, Brian, and you're going to jail now.

So let's, let's tweak it a little bit and let's talk about obstruction of justice. And this is the standard that I think we meet, and this is why, folks. So if you're a federal law enforcement officer—not going to apply to state and local yet, okay—but if you're federally protected under the law, then federal law says it's contrary if you knowingly and willfully make any materially false or fictitious or fraudulent statement or representation in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch. And federal officers are under the executive branch. Okay, that you have done an illegal act. Why? Because what you're doing is you're either hindering or obstructing the flow of justice, and you're affecting again the outcomes of certain situations.

So if I could draw a line that said that your Boston professor made statements that all cops are evil, on the take, racist, and are going to beat you to death, and that influenced you to flee from the scene, and subsequently you're fleeing, you ran a red light and killed a family on the way to church, Brian, I would say you're the approximate cause. Your words incited my lawless action. And Brian, I don't think it's as much of a stretch, and that's all I wanted you to see is that, look, words have to look... I'm not talking about being in a the old standard, the being in a theater and yelling "fire," okay? And then somebody breaks...

Oh, I should have brought that up even earlier! Because you imagine, but what happened with that one is that the Supreme Court justice, I forget his name, when he wrote that example in his opinion about imminent lawless action and what incitement is, he later, not long after, immediately regretted it because he's like, "That's the worst example!" And then every [explicit] I've seen... he could have ever... every [explicit] on social media still continues to use that like, "Yeah, but you can't go 'fire'!"

My point here is that free speech doesn't cover, like, for example, pedophilia is in a wide criminal statute, legal standards, all that other stuff. So if we start talking about certain things under support of pedophiles, that's illegal, we can't do that. Yet, not long ago in Congress, NABLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) was in the aisles trying to get congressmen to lower the ages of consent. So, Brian, I'm telling you that there's always a duplicitous standard, and that's what the law tries to wade through. But the idea, because the whole idea behind having two sides and having two groups of experts and attorneys is because nothing is clear, you see what I'm saying? So, so I'm saying Will Smith clearly knew he was getting angry, and he clearly willfully and knowingly walked up on the stage and assaulted another human being. Then he went back to his seat still angry and heckled and harangued him. And that wasn't a comedy club. And so I'm saying that the right jury or the right judge at the right time will look at that behavior, Brian, it's unwarranted.

No, no, that's clear, that's clearly illegal. Yeah, whether anything's done about it or not, that, that's different. But it's not up to us, is it? That that's, it's a clear violation of the law. But you, you know, you brought up an important term, but it goes back to, I think it goes back to, you know, the university professor example, you said, "You knew or should have known."

Yes, sir.

So this is a different standard. If you know I'm sitting in an empty park and I read that professor's comments out loud for all to hear and no one hears me and I'm no one, that's a little bit different when I have a national level audience, when I'm a professor at a well-known university, I am charging a significant amount of money for people to come and hear me talk. So I'm a professional, I'm, I'm seen in this area of thought and study as one of the preeminent leaders in this field. Do you have a duty? Do you have a responsibility? What is it? Because someone could say, if, if there were a case where someone went out and then assaulted a police officer after walked out of him talking seriously and giving a speech, and then they walked out and punched a police officer in the face, could you say that what his, his speech was, was incitement? Well, in that specific case, yes, I think you could make that argument. You could easily make that argument, and you could say that he's responsible because he knew or should have known what he was saying was likely to cause, not only because, because of his education, because of his area of expertise, because of what he does, because of his notoriety, you are held to a different standard than the homeless guy with mental health issues in the park. It's two completely different things.

Exactly. And I think that sums up our argument, and it might not be criminal prima facie, but it may be tort law, very easy, I think so. And with the right lawyer at the right time, in the right Supreme Court or, or a Circuit Court judge rather, I think that you could make a case and actually bring them before the court and have a good argument. I, I, Brian, I don't know what the outcome of that one would be, but I'd watch it, I'd tune in.

Well, that, that's why it goes, oh yeah, that's why it goes back to the "knew or should have known." Like, you, if you're this person, you're this well-educated, and you understand these things, well, guess what? You now knew or should have known that what you're doing is going to cause this type of behavior. And that's a huge important distinction.

Brian, let me add a Greg quote, just wrote it down and actually wrote down the date. "The worst laws are written in force during times of war." You know that, and I know that, okay? And I mean, we can go back to draft law, we can go back to insurrection, we can go back to people being executed for something that had there not been a war on who were brought up. Yeah, think about it.

Yeah.

Patriot Act is right up in our nose and it doesn't pass the smell test in many respects. So what, so what I'm saying is, right now it appears as though we have a nation at war with its police. Wait a minute, if I started my opening argument to the jury with that, Brian, and then I followed up with the worst laws are written and enforced during this, I'd have that Boston legal professor, I'd have them on the ropes, I'm telling you right now. And folks, if you're listening, I'm telling you, all I got to do is draw the line connecting the fiber and then have them duke it out. That's it.

Well, as an, as an argument's sake, I'm sure you could, could, depending on the jury and the circumstances, could make that argument in court and, and I'll get them on board to agree with you. But this, this is when I again, when people say this is a war on whatever, or it's a war on this, or it's a war, it's like, "I don't know, man, I've [explicit] been to war, I've seen a lot of that. People yelling at each other is not war." It's actually a really good thing. We, we...

No, no, no, but I'm talking killing cops, right?

Right. And you know what? That, it looked a lot like war when I saw the dead bodies. So I, I get what you're saying. And but, but you're just to, to take smaller incidents and then, then try to show it as an overarching trend, I mean, that's, that's five years of examples, right? It's not that hard.

I, I agree, I agree. I, I'm telling you, Brian, I would definitely tune in to that.

I would too. And this is one of the times where we, we are in disagreement only based on the fact of predicting people's likelihood to get behind an issue. And I'm telling you right now, they would get behind it. I'm not saying it's right.

Right. No, no, yeah. The nation would get behind it and it would be a great scrum in court.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. I'm saying, is there enough artifacts and evidence to support a reasonable conclusion? Is there enough there? And if, while if a jury's in a court says there is, then there is and it's precedent and like, okay, I'm, I'm that, I, I'm on board with it, you get what I'm saying?

But I'm saying that we declared a war on drugs, Brian, that lasted 25 years, right? A lot of people died in that war.

Yeah.

But let me tell you this, if I approached it with that and I used words, the whole center of our conversation, I bet I could get enough people to lean in. Do you get what I'm saying? The United States being as divisive as they are now about certain issues and everything. You bring that up and run it up the flagpole, and Brian, it might only last a week, the fervor around the argument, you know? But an argument could be made that there's a war on the U.S. Constitution, there's a war on the Supreme Court.

No, no, I, I, you're right. You're right. No, and, and I will, I will acquiesce that you can, yes, you could say that and show that. My thing would be, "Yeah, but when, when has there not been that?" Like, you know, I'm not just a grin, oh no, sleazy lawyer.

Oh, and I would come in and go, "Yeah, you're absolutely right, so the precedent is since the since the Constitution was ratified, there's been a war on the Constitution. So what makes this any different than exactly than 200 years ago?"

And we wouldn't have border security if there wasn't a war on the security of the United States.

Yeah, yeah, that's the argument. Yeah, no, no, you're all right. I'm doing the Ben & Jerry's. Vanilla is the most important flavor, right? Why? Because if you can do vanilla right, everything else is right. And what I'm trying to be is a little bit poking fun at our use of words with fighting words. Of course, I think we're just flipping it on its ear, you know, just to make people think, my dear friend.

No, I, I, I definitely agree with that. And, and there's certain, I, I know we could, we've, we talked about it before in the past, but one, obviously, we say words matter. We always care more about behavior. But your words absolutely influence behavior. And I always go back, just like I brought up before, is, what is your intent? Like, my takeaway is like, if you're going to post something on social media, what is your intent behind it? You want to show yourself in a cool car or something at the beach with your friends because you're having fun? That sounds normal, that sounds reasonable. What are you trying to do? Like, what is your comment? What good is it doing? Does it add value to the conversation? What is your intent with that comment? Because again, it goes back to the criticism. Someone says, "Well, I don't think this." And they're just like some, you clearly can tell from their comment, they're some jackass who's just saying stupid [explicit]. But what does everyone do? And they want to, we want to pile on it. "Well, you don't under..." And it becomes this whole spiral out of control.

And it leads me back to what I've thought about all of these social media companies where I said, "All right, what if I was Mark Zuckerberg or used to be Jack Dorsey, who runs Twitter, now it's Elon, all these guys?" What if you, what if you had, what if you were running one of these platforms? You know what? I [explicit] couldn't stand having to deal with people complaining about all the divisive speech on there and all the, the interactions between people and, and why aren't you limiting this? And why they shouldn't be allowed to say that? I would hate having to deal with that. So I guarantee all of this [explicit] that they have to deal with gets in the way of them making money. I, I know, I understand that people say, "Well, the algorithms are designed to get you to argue against each other." It's kind of not really, it's just designed to give you information that you keep looking for. "Oh, you're looking for this, here's some more of it. Oh, you're looking for the issue." Well, that's, you can kind of get radicalized in a way because you're just in this echo chamber. But the idea is, I, I can imagine them just being like, "I wish [explicit] people would stop being such [explicit] so I could run this business." But I think that's what it would be. I, I don't know though. I, I, I, I, I, I have to go, buddy. I don't know, I don't know. I doubt that I'm never going to be running any some sort of a social media organization, folks.

Brian is pre-Musk. Just so you know, pre-Musk. That's so true. That means, okay, you know what my closing words are, Brian? My closing words for this episode are that just like you knew or should have known, I would add that the words you don't say are as powerful as the words that you do. And if you don't speak up and you don't speak out, then sit in a corner and color, because you're not having your opinion known. Look, you can intervene and stop a terrorist act, you can intervene and stop an act of domestic violence or kidnapping or any of those other things. I'm just saying, man, what you say matters and what you don't say matters. I just want to keep everybody in that group too.

That's a good point. I, I will echo the "you knew or should have known" as an important phrase to understand and, and, and, you know, contemplate your past actions in life under that "knew or should have known." I can look back to me doing a lot of stupid stuff when I was a kid, especially involving alcohol. Nobody told you that when you were a kid.

Probably should have known that.

Well, maybe I wasn't just a kid, maybe my 20s, whereas like, I probably should have known that was going to go catastrophically bad. I really should have at that point. You know, it's a good thing for personal. And then, you know, like you said, is, is responsibility, intent. Yes, you know, and most people do want their say, not their way. But words absolutely matter. I think a better understanding of just the First Amendment of the Constitution, you can go, there's so many great sites. I'll put some links in the episode that explain, "Hey, this is what the Supreme Court says this means. This is what incitement means for the Supreme Court. This is what imminent lawless action looks like. Here's some examples, here's some case law." Because it's a good comparative because then it's very simple, here's what happened, you just compare the new thing on that and go, "Ah, you know what? These really aren't the same at all." So, or, "You know what? This is exactly the same." So I, I think that's a, that's a good one. And we're big proponents of, of, of the First Amendment. Obviously, we're on a podcast, so we're, we're all about research.

I've got the Constitution on the driver's seat visor of my truck, Brian. It's, it's been there since every truck I've had. So, yeah. It's a good document. Everyone want to sit by the side of the road and, you know, take, take a minute while you're waiting for your food or something. It's a great thing to break into. There's a lot of thought that went into that and it's been around a good long time. As my dear friend Brian says, "Ideas that stick around are generally ones we have to pay attention to."

Yeah, good ideas stick around. Well, on that, I think we'll, we'll end for today. Thanks, everybody.

You know where I'm going. Yeah, and then I got to visit Pompeii.

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