Resilience, Heroism, and Constitutional Fidelity: A Conversation with Mark Deluzio

Join us for an enlightening conversation with Mark Deluzio of  @ConstitutionSolution &  a pioneer in lean manufacturing and the mastermind behind the globally revered Danaher Business System. Hear Mark's inspiring story, from his humble beginnings in New England to his pivotal role in shaping modern manufacturing practices taught at Harvard. Mark also opens up about his personal life, sharing the heart-wrenching tale of his sons' military service and the tragic loss of his younger son, Steven, providing listeners with a raw and heartfelt perspective on resilience and heroism.

We shift gears to discuss some of today's most contentious political issues  involving President Obama and the broader implications of globalism and communism. His close friendship with Sheriff Joe Arpaio adds a personal touch to the investigation insights we delve into. We also explore the legacy of influential figures like John Birch and Senator McCarthy, drawing connections to current leaders like President Trump, who challenge these ideologies in their fight for election integrity and against globalist agendas.

The episode takes a deep dive into the crucial year of 1913, examining its lasting impact on America's economic and political landscape. From the establishment of the Federal Reserve to the 16th Amendment, we uncover the constitutional concerns that continue to shape the nation. Personal reflections on grief and heroism, along with a critique of modern political dynamics, round out this rich and multifaceted discussion. Through Mark Deluzio's compelling narrative and our critical analysis, listeners are offered a mix of inspiration, historical insight, and a call for constitutional fidelity.

Learn more about Mark's son Scott: https://driveonpodcast.com/product/surviving-son

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Mark Deluzio
• 9:31 The Truth About President Trump
• 22:00 The Globalist Agenda and Trump's Fight
• 27:37 The Impact of 1913 on America
• 32:27 Exposing the Globalist Agenda
• 36:56 Critical Thinking in Today's Society
• 45:53 Constitutional Critiques and Concerns
• 59:46 The Price of Love and Grief

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's the Elsa Kurtz Show conservative views on world news brought to you by the Wellness Company. Prepare for the unexpected.

Speaker 2: 0:09

And now it's time for the show. Well, hello, my friends. We are here today not with Clay I know you're looking at this guy next to me going that's not Clay. No, this is my new great friend. I'm so thrilled to have met this guy. This is Mark Deluzio. We are hanging out together today and we have so much to talk about. It's not that I have so much to talk about, it's so much that I want to listen to you talk about. So welcome to the show. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 0:41

Thanks, elsa, I really appreciate it. This is great.

Speaker 2: 0:44

Absolutely so. Mark was so kind to reach out to me a couple of few weeks ago, I think it was, and we we've been having these wonderful exchanges back and forth and come to find out he is originally local to where I'm at. I'm not telling you people where I am, please come on now but we are our New Englanders. Were you born and raised in New England or did you end up in New England?

Speaker 1: 1:07

No, I'm born and raised. You were OK.

Speaker 2: 1:10

So, yes, so we are fellow New Englanders. You have since gone for sunnier, warmer, better locations. I cannot wait to follow suit, but I I want to talk about your story, because your, your story is really fascinating and incredible and the things that you do. So let's give everybody, if you don't mind, give everybody a little bit of background about who you are.

Speaker 1: 1:35

Sure, by the way, I'm not old enough to have voted for Lincoln. Okay, just to let you know, I knew him, but I wasn't old enough to vote at the time. Okay, so, but anyway, yeah, I came from a working class, lower, you know, middle-class, family. My father was a twill-and-die guy for 44 years. Never missed a day of work in his life, except for when he fought in World War II. He fought with the battle of Iwo Jima and taught me my work ethic.

Speaker 1: 2:05

So you know, at 10 years old, I was shoveling driveways in New England.

Speaker 1: 2:09

I was cutting lawns and stealing my mother's lemonade to go sell to the construction workers for nickel, and they would give us a quarter and we thought we could have retired back then.

Speaker 1: 2:19

And then I was the first one to go to college in my family and put my way through college working at United Parcel Service at 5 in the morning and then going to school in the afternoon, and I ended up with two college degrees, undergrad degrees in business, and then I have an MBA. And, long story short, I started out in the finance world and came up through the ranks and became a corporate officer and I became, I got involved in manufacturing and was lucky enough to be at the forefront of uh the lean manufacturing movement in the United States by a company called Danaher, which I became a corporate officer for and developed what we now call the Danaher business system, which is world-renowned. Uh, they teach it at Harvard and I get calls all the time all around the world on DBS, on the Danaher business system, and all these CEOs want to implement it and I tell them they can't, unless you go work for Danaher.

Speaker 2: 3:13

It's a no.

Speaker 1: 3:15

They got to do their own thing. But anyway, that's my back. So I have a consulting company, elsa. I started in 2001, right before 9-11. What a great timing that was, but it didn't really hurt me. And I've been consulting globally. I have a global team. We're in Australia. I've been to India four times. Last year I was 550 meters underground in a copper mine in Australia last year. We're going to be working in South Africa, norway, the biggest fishery company. They provide 50% of the biggest fishery company. They provide 50% of the world's salmon supply and we worked in all kinds of different industries logging, fracking, oil and gas, insurance and doing all kinds of things. So I've been doing that. I love doing it because I love teaching. I had just celebrated my 44th anniversary to my wife, diane, who, uh, she's probably the luckiest girl on the planet, you know so you tell her every day, right?

Speaker 1: 4:14

yes, and I really know her eye rolls, so don't worry. Uh and and uh. Well, we actually met when we were 19. My very best friend since four years old he's still my best friend introduced me. He had me go to this work party and I didn't want to go. He called me three times also and I finally went and when I walked in the house I saw my wife sitting on the couch and I said to my friend, frank. I said, frank, I'm going to marry her. I just knew it. Now, it took her a little while longer to figure that out.

Speaker 2: 4:44

It wasn't as instantaneous for her.

Speaker 1: 4:46

No, it wasn't, but you know we hit it off and we dated the next weekend and that was the whole thing, right. So we've been married for 44 years. We have two boys. Both want to become degreed accountants, like their father it's one of my degrees, anyway and worked for CPA firms. And they left CPA firms to go fight in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, and they wanted to join the infantry. They did not want to become commissioned officers and they wanted to be what's called NCO non-commissioned officers and they wanted to fight in the infantry. Okay. Which is like well, why'd they pick the infantry?

Speaker 1: 5:19

That's what they wanted to do, and my younger guy, steven, at the age age of 25, got killed over there. So, uh, we became gold star parents. Um, scott was there at the same time. They sent him home and and he, a matter of fact, I have to send you his book. Uh, elsa, he wrote a book called surviving son please, so I'll get that shoot over to you.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Yep, we'll put a link in the notes for the uh, for that too, yeah it's on amazon and he also has a podcast called drive on podcast uh, which is dedicated to helping military people transition, and he's very well rated, uh globally on that. I think he told me he's in the top five percent. But um, he runs that as well and um and so so we we lost Steven in 2010. He was scheduled to be married to his high school sweetheart when he got back and of course, we had to change all those plans and that didn't happen. But in 2010, I think you probably know who was president back then it was Obama. We never got a phone call. We got a form letter with a computer generated signature because we compared it with other gold star parents, and this was totally ignored. Right call we got a phone letter with a computer generated signature because we compared it with other gold star parents, and this was totally ignored. Right now you got to remember the terror of Ferguson Michael Brown's mother got a call.

Speaker 2: 6:34

Right.

Speaker 1: 6:35

And, matter of fact, obama says that if I had a son, that's the model I would want A guy like Michael Brown, who took the gun from the cop, got killed in the process of doing so and just minutes earlier earlier accosted a lady in a convenience store. So that's the model that Obama wants. But we didn't get a call. In 2019, we got a call from the White House I thought it was a prank call, you know and they said the president and first lady would like to honor you, your son Stephen, who's the one that was killed, and your family at the White House, and he had a ceremony with other Gold Star parents. He and Melania spent three hours with us.

Speaker 1: 7:11

I'll tell you right now anybody who tells me he does not respect the military, you're going to have to go a long way to convince me, because he is an unbelievable passionate person. We saw another side of him. Of course, the press makes him out to be a tyrant and all that. Right, that's not him. He does things that nobody reports. Matter of fact, he did this every year, elsa, when he was president, and he never publicized it. There was no press about it. Nobody knew about it.

Speaker 2: 7:43

Okay, oh yeah, he pulled out the stops.

Speaker 1: 7:46

Let knew about it. Okay, oh, he pulled out the stops. Let me tell you. He had the military, the Marine Chamber Band, the President's Band playing. They had a lady playing the harp, people serving us drinks and champagne. He had a great spread of food. He had dignitaries there from every branch. He had the chairman of the Joint Chiefs there Pence was there, we won't talk about him and he had all the top branch guys from the top brass, from the military there and he had this unbelievable ceremony for us and we had the run of the White House, the East Wing. They didn't kick us out afterwards. We were there for over an hour and a half and nobody was telling us to leave, right, and the night before we had a chance to go visit the West Wing. We got a tour of that, wow, and they you know. So we got to see the Oval Office and all that Smaller than you think it is, if you ever saw it really is it yeah, it looks bigger on tv, but it was funny because they had on that one there.

Speaker 1: 8:46

They had a like one of those velvet ropes across the door so we couldn't go in, okay. So two funny things happened. My son and I put our foot in the oval office and my wife, brian, said what are you guys doing? Well, we want to be able to say we were in the oval office. You know, heck, yeah shakes her head, you know. And I'm looking to the far right, I'm sticking my head in and I'm looking over to the right and Diane says to me Mark, what are you doing? I said I want to see the Lewinsky Room. That's the most famous room in the world. Forget the Oval Office, right.

Speaker 1: 9:16

Yes, I want to see the and she goes.

Speaker 2: 9:17

you're an idiot, she says to me you're an idiot, as only a wife would say right, A lot of stuff went down in there you know, literally Literally.

Speaker 1: 9:28

So anyway that was terrible and I'll tell you right now. When General Kelly came out you know and you know I'm good friends with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, very good friends with him he called me and said, because he loves President Trump, the first pardon he made was for Sheriff Joe. On that Obama thing, the birth certificate thing, which Sheriff Joe showed me, the whole thing and how his certificate is a fraud, okay, and all Sheriff Joe said show us the real one. That's all he wanted to do. He wasn't about to say where Obama was born or question where he was born. He just said show me the birth certificate. And Obama never produced it and I won't get into the details of what he showed me, but it's clear that he was not born in that hospital on the day they said he was born, okay, in Hawaii. It's unbelievably clear, but anyway.

Speaker 1: 10:15

So. So Sheriff Joe calls me and says Mark, general Kelly is really dissing President Trump. I want you to write a letter to me asking me to ask President Trump in support of and talk about your Gold Star experience with him and going to the White House. I put the picture in the letter and all that and I'll send you the letter. So he sent it to Trump's assistant and she posted it on Truth and President Trump actually texted me and thanked me for doing that, and President Trump actually texted me and thanked me for doing that and the thing that people understand with General Kelly, by the way, is General Kelly was his chief of staff and Trump fired him.

Speaker 1: 10:52

Then General Kelly started talking about the mean thing he said about John McCain which you know. I agree it was a dumb thing to say and there's no upside to saying it, but he said it and also the scuffle he had with the Muslim ghost, our father. So Kelly was using that as an example of how Trump just hates the military. Well, I did a little investigation and found out that those events happened a year and two years before he took the job with Trump.

Speaker 2: 11:17

Wow, Isn't that interesting, very interesting Very interesting.

Speaker 1: 11:23

Now, general Kelly is a ghost Star father as well. Right, yeah, but somebody got to him and paid him or something, I don't know what. Maybe he had a grudge against Trump for firing him, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 11:33

But you know, I did a little investigation.

Speaker 1: 11:35

How does a guy take a job with such a tyrant that hates the military? Okay, right, if that happened a year and two years before.

Speaker 2: 11:45

And that's such a common story. It's such a common story throughout Trump's first presidency that so many people who you know loved him are on record on video, on you know, just everywhere, talking about how great he is and how much they love him and how much he's done for them and how much they appreciate him. And the minute, the minute, it was clear that he was running for president, they all started turning on him. And, and you know it's that's the irony to me how many of these people loved him so much before that and then completely turned on him. It's just, you know, and there's proof, there's so much proof.

Speaker 2: 12:19

But then there's so many people you know all of the orange man, bad, mean tweets, blah, blah, blah, uh. You know all of these people you know either genuinely don't know or they've selectively forgotten all of these actual truths and not the ones that the mainstream media and the and the, the, uh, you know left wing politicians want you to believe of him. And I so love that you shared that story of your experience with him. Uh, because there's so so many stories like that of his kindness and his generosity and his true, genuine patriotism. And you know the one thing that we collectively know as people who actually do support him and, by the way, not blindly support him. We have no problem pointing out any of his you know failings or inadequacies or mistakes or anything. We're not blind followers, as they like to, you know, portray anyone who supports Trump. But we also know you know truth from fiction and you know the truth is is he is not the guy that they portray him to be, so absolutely not, absolutely not.

Speaker 1: 13:26

And you know the other thing too, that when we met him he walked over to my wife and gave her a big hug, right, and he looked up to the sky, pointed up and said Stephen's looking down. Not that he knew Stephen, and they told him what the name was, right, but but you know he, he took that kind of, you know and uh you know, and I and I and I told Diane, I said, diane, you know, we've been married.

Speaker 1: 13:53

at that time was, whatever it was, 39 years. Whatever I said, I would never leave you for another woman, I said, except Melania.

Speaker 2: 14:00

Listen, that woman is so beautiful.

Speaker 1: 14:06

Well, she said you couldn't afford to buy her lunch.

Speaker 2: 14:08

I like your wife and, by the way, you got me all teary here. I can't wait to meet your wife. I think we're going to get along swimmingly.

Speaker 1: 14:15

I don't want you to meet her.

Speaker 2: 14:17

Oh yeah, You're in trouble.

Speaker 1: 14:19

Well, when I come up your way, you know, we grew up pretty close to each other.

Speaker 2: 14:26

Yeah, you know, we grew up pretty close to each other. Yeah, um, we got to do dinner and uh we'll definitely do that, but yeah and uh, I already know the place, but but uh, no.

Speaker 1: 14:33

So you know. So when you, when you really look at at what's going on here, you know going into the political thing and you know I have a podcast that you're going to be on- yeah, yeah, tell everybody the name of the podcast, please.

Speaker 1: 14:45

It's called Constitution Solution One Podcast Under God and you can find it on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast Rumble. We haven't been kicked off of YouTube yet but I had Ted Nugent on a few weeks ago. He's a friend of mine, a big patriot, and I had Sheriff Joe on on. I'm going to be having floyd brown on uh coming up, who is a the guy that kind of put together citizens united and also the worldly horton thing against the caucus, and he's the chairman of carry lake's uh uh campaign and so I got to meet and know him and because I am helping carry lake with policy and stuff like that, so her and I are friends, friends and we're helping Carrie. I was just at her victory party the other night and we have all these people on that are patriots that have a point of view about our country like you do, and so the whole intent of the podcast and, by the way, the website for that podcast is called 1787solutioncom and that's the year that we founded the Constitution or ratified it, and we really think that people don't know the Constitution. It's true, they think it's an outdated document.

Speaker 1: 16:01

I had a liberal tell me once. She told me a college kid. She said that's an old document, that's an old document, that's outdated. I go yeah, tell me. Once she told me a college kid. She said that's an old document. You know she, that's an old document, that's you know that's outdated.

Speaker 2: 16:10

I go, yeah, Well, what about the Bible? They'll call that outdated too. They call that fiction right, Don't they call that a book?

Speaker 1: 16:18

What people don't understand is the Marxist agenda that's being inflicted on us because we're too busy fighting. All the different infractions, like was transgender, is taking down the family, taking away your God, the economy, the race baiters out there that want to divide us with income disparity, gender disparity, I mean all these things that are being launched out there are intending to divide us, exactly what Stalin did when he killed 100 million people, which we never learned about in school.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Right, that's absolutely true.

Speaker 1: 16:50

Yeah, I mean, you know, we learned that Stalin was our ally, but he killed far more people than Hitler did. And I'm not trying to say what Hitler did was right. It wasn't, of course.

Speaker 1: 17:02

No, it's not to minimize hitler, it's to acknowledge that he's not the only one right no, no, exactly right, exactly right, and and so, uh, you know we're the marxist agenda that's being inflicted on us, so we're trying to teach people about that and what our rights are for the constitution. Uh, the more you know I. I know it pretty well. But let me tell you something else. Every time I get into a particular episode that we do, whether it be on executive orders, whether it be on any one of the amendments, I can't I am astonished how brilliant our founders were.

Speaker 2: 17:36

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:37

It blowed me away.

Speaker 2: 17:40

Okay Now site that they had. Right Is unbelievable. Right is unbelievable it is unbelievable.

Speaker 1: 17:48

And and you know, and by the way, they, they argued too. They it's like today. They had debates. You had the hamilton, you know hamilton's. He had the uh uh.

Speaker 1: 17:57

Then the adams were the big government guys that wanted a bigger, expansive government. You had jefferson and madison and people like that that were were for a limited government and thank God, they ended up winning that fight. It divided Adams and Jefferson all their lives, matter of fact, especially when Jefferson beat John Quincy, the son of John Adams, for president because he was a big government guy too. And it divided them for their whole lives. They were very good friends when this whole thing started and it invited them for their whole lives. They were very good friends when this whole thing started and they died on the same day, 50 years to the day, on July 4th 1826. They both died on the same day, adams and Jefferson, but Jefferson was off the charts, brilliant. If I had three people I wanted to meet and go back and meet people, ask that question right, it would be Thomas Jefferson, it would be Margaret Thatcher and it would be Jesus. Yeah, jesus Christ, oh he's.

Speaker 2: 18:50

He'd be the third, but he's the number one. I gotcha.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I didn't put them in.

Speaker 2: 18:56

I know what you meant.

Speaker 1: 19:03

Yeah, and Margaret Thatcher was like my God, what she did and excuse my language, but the ball she had against all these men who? And she didn't give a damn. She just said here's what it is, here's what I think. Don't like it Tough, take a hike. And she was able to talk about it. It wasn't a glass ceiling at that time, it was a steel ceiling that she broke through. Sure, I was so fascinated with her. She was the league of Her Own, right? Did you happen to see there was a movie on her life. Did you happen to see it? I have not seen it. It's called the Iron Lady. How did they do?

Speaker 2: 19:36

Oh, phenomenal. Yeah, I know the acting was great. I know that much because I know who the actress is.

Speaker 1: 19:40

Yeah, you need to watch that one sometime because it tells you who she was. And boy, I give her all kinds of credit. And Thomas Jefferson they say that when Washington's cabinet was assembled, you know, with Adams and Hamilton and John Jay and all these other people and Jefferson, it was the most condensed intellect and intelligence on the planet at that time, except for when Thomas Jefferson was by himself. You know, and if you read the, if you know, Madison wrote the constitution, jefferson wrote the declaration of independence, and when you read that, I mean it's a, it's a, it's a piece of, it's an art, it's art the way he used the words and I'm curious when have you always had this interest in the Constitution specifically?

Speaker 2: 20:30

or did this come about because of everything going on Like? Have you always had this passion for it?

Speaker 1: 20:36

Yes, maybe not to the level I'm doing now, but I always did, and one of the things I've always done. I was always able to see patterns in the big picture as to what's going on, and it was so good to hear President Trump the other day talk about the Marxist agenda. We've got to use that word more often. One of my episodes, a couple of my episodes on my podcast is one is about globalism and Marxism, and I take the Communist Manifesto and I will detail for you point by point in that episode how our government is implementing the Communist Manifesto and I also, for each one, talk about the biblical conflict for each one of those. Okay, secondly, another one I did, I got one on the military industrial complex and uh, and, by the way, thank you for reminding me, cause I want to get back to Trump on this one, um, and. And the other one I did was was Robert Welch, right Now, who was Robert Welch?

Speaker 1: 21:36

He was the founder of the John Birch society and and which I'm a life member of, and uh, the John Birch society was ostracized by the left as being a bunch of wackos and conspiracy theorists and all that Racist and all that right, all the normal stuff, all the favorite stuff, yeah, and so Robert Welch was the founder of that. He wrote this thing called the Blue Book. He had a meeting in Indiana and that's when the John Birch Society was founded. John Birch was a missionary in China who got killed by the communists it's a long story but that's who they named it after and he wrote this thing called the Blue Book, which is basically the document he read at that meeting, for the two-day meeting he had with all these top influential people, and and the blue book. I went through the blue book and in that book he talked about the communist overthrow of our country way back in 1958. Wow, you know, and I went through 1958, it's back to okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:35

And so I went through that book, Elsa, and I highlighted all of his predictions or statements about what was going on, and there were 15 that I highlighted and there were 15. He's betting 1,000. Everything he predicted. Now Robert Welch is off the charts genius as well. He started a candy company. What were the candies that he had? Junior Mints and Sugar Daddy, I think. But he made all his money from that. He graduated college at the age of 15 or something. He was off the charts brilliant, right, but he was able to see patterns, okay and tie the connect the dots, right, and he ended up forming John Birch Society.

Speaker 1: 23:17

Now, at a similar time, Senator McCarthy came out and started accusing everybody of being communist and he was a little callous as to how he went about and did it and unfortunately he opened himself for a lot of criticism as a nut job. But McCarthy and I may do an episode on that was correct as well about his assertions, Okay. But again, it's easy to demonize Whenever you see something like the election here in Arizona, where I live. You know when the audit got done and I spent six hours studying that audit. It was poorly done in terms of how they reported it, but with my data background, I was able to make heads and tails about it. There was definitely irregularities, big time irregularities.

Speaker 1: 23:56

Okay, and you got to remember, Maricopa is bigger than county which I live in, is bigger than 23 states in the USS, Wow Okay, Population-wise, and all that. So what the press did was they criticized the auditors. They didn't criticize the findings. That's a very typical liberal approach, where they'll expect a person to deflect from the subject at hand, and that's exactly what they did. Well, it's the same thing with Robert Welch and the same thing with McCarthy, Okay, and I'll tell you right now it's so unbelievably scary how right he was.

Speaker 1: 24:30

It's very scary yeah, there is a globalist overthrow with the World Economic Forum, klaus Schwab, all these yo-yos that are trying to run this thing, and I tell people you know, socialism is just a JV team for communism. So you Bernie Sanders fans out there. And number two is there will be winners in communism. It just won't be you.

Speaker 2: 24:51

Right, right, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 24:53

That's so true, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:56

You know what gets me about everything that you're saying, like I literally and I'm not putting myself down by any means, but I literally only have a fraction of the knowledge that you have on these topics, like a fraction, and I can see what's happening. You know what I mean. So that's how, and that's not no credit to me, that's simply how blatant they are. Now they're not hiding any of what they're doing. So that's what really, honestly, gets me the most right now, that all of the people you know we've been saying these things for a while now, for several years at least. Just you know general groups of us, groups like you who know a lot more, have been saying this for a lot longer. We caught on a little bit with people like me, caught on, you know, a little late in the game, but now we're trying to get other people to see what's really happening here. And and so that's what gets me how is it that only some people can see what's right in front of your face, what's playing out in real time, what they're coming right out and saying like there's no hiding it, and yet we still have a really frighteningly large part of our population that's sitting here going yay, free college, free everything Yay, it's terrifying really, and you know, kind of.

Speaker 2: 26:11

What I want to ask you is are we going to be able to turn this around? Are we too far gone down this path? You know, obviously, to me Trump is a huge hope in turning that around, but, my goodness, if he had an uphill battle the first time around, it's twice as high this time that he's got to fight up. So what do you see happening? If you can even project, Well, you know it's interesting.

Speaker 1: 26:35

You ask that because, again, I do want to bring this around to Trump again because one of the reasons that go after him is because he is fighting the globalists. You know, he pulled out of the Paris Accords, he pulled out of the WHO. I think that if he had become president which I do believe, he won the election, but last time he would have pulled out of the UN, which we really do need to do. All the countries, many of the countries in the UN right now, are against their own UN doctrine about peace and all that stuff. So I really believe he would have done that and I would applaud that if he would. These globalists, many of them, besides just the UN, they all started to go back to Woodrow Wilson I call him Woody because I've probably seen his first name and we do two episodes on that. Suzette Lawrence and I who's my partner you'll meet when you come on our show did two episodes on Woody Wilson and he was put in there as a student by the industrialists back then, the jp, morgans and people like that. They were all globalists and all anti-semites. Okay, and and uh, and they, they actually, you know, put him in and he started this.

Speaker 1: 27:37

1913 I have an episode on. This was the worst year in our history, in my opinion. Okay, that year is the year that woody was elected, number one, who actually came out and said that the, the, the checks and balances of our constitution are a theory. Okay, no, it's the law. It's the law. Okay, uh. Two, he started the first uh agency, the federal trade commission, and at that time, he signed into law law.

Speaker 1: 28:05

The 16th Amendment was our income tax, the right to tax income, and there's something about that that people don't get, and I'll talk about it in a minute. And that year we also established the Federal Reserve, which, to me, is the reason, and if you understand how it works, there's no incentive for the Federal Reserve to do what their charter is, which is to keep the economy stable. Absolutely zero incentive to do that. Okay, and, as you can see, every single economic calamity, including the one that we're going to be going into next, because we will, and it will happen on Trump's watch if he wins and they'll blame him for it, but is all because of the Fed, okay, so those are the things that happened in 1913.

Speaker 1: 28:50

And also the 17th Amendment, which was taking away the state legislator's right to appoint senators. Now they're voted in. Okay, and that's a big deal too. There's more to that. I won't spend a lot of time on it. But the 16th Amendment what was wrong about that? And, by the way, people back then wanted it, elsa. A lot of time on it. But, um, the 16th amendment, what was wrong about that? Because, oh yeah, they, and, by the way, people back then wanted it, elsa. They wanted it because they used, believe it or not, this line called the. The rich people have to pay their fair share now they still use it now.

Speaker 2: 29:17

What happened in the 16th amendment, though? Wasn't the fact as bad that they're going to tax your income? They?

Speaker 1: 29:20

took away the provision in the 16th Amendment, though wasn't the fact as bad that they would tax your income? They took away the provision in the Constitution, which is in Article 1, section 8, I believe, where Congress has the right to tax, but the taxes have to come from the states, proportionately based on population. So let's just say, you know, iowa represents 7% of the country's population. 7% of the federal taxes come from Iowa. That was blown away in the 16th Amendment, which gave way to the graduated income tax. The more you make, the more you pay and, by the way, that is one of the ten tenants of the Marxist agenda. Okay, wow, so there you go, all right, wow, I hope you're all taking notes.

Speaker 2: 30:06

I hope everybody's taking notes because when I watch it back, I'll be taking notes and I'm also, and again, guys, I will link your show, as well as your sons, in the book. All of the links for everything will be in the show's notes so you'll be able to click right on it. And I'm I'm so excited. You know, I told you this in our, in our casual conversation a couple of weeks ago, that I was, I was, I was a delinquent in high school. I was not a very good student In fact I was, so was.

Speaker 2: 30:34

I OK, it makes me feel a little bit better. And I was actually kicked out of my history class because I talk too much. I know everybody's shocked by that, but it's true. What a surprise that I was kicked out of class for talking too much. I was kicked out of many classes for talking too much.

Speaker 2: 30:51

Nevermind all of that, my point being is that I, in this stage of my life and I'm fine with it because it's I love learning, but in this stage of my life, I feel like I'm in the world's biggest game of catch up, like catching up on all of these things, and I am so excited I'm talking like Kamala with my hands like this Sorry, I just caught myself I'm so excited to watch your program because there's so much that I'm going to get from it and anyone who's in the same boat or needs a refresher or just simply loves continuous learning. This is stuff, like you said early on, this is so imperative that we know our history, that we know our constitution, that we know what's happening right now in our world, because if you live in this, you know bubble of oblivion, which I was notorious for once upon a time. You're you're complicit in the downfall of our country. You know so dire.

Speaker 1: 31:48

But it really is that dire, I believe yeah, well, you know, and again, again, I keep saying I want to loop this back to president trump. So what he did in fighting all of this, he calls it the swamp. Okay, uh, that's why they're going after him. Yes, okay, they're going after because of the, his attack on globalism, the military industrial complex. He did not start a war, which, by the way, is, uh, if you go back and and really try to understand why kennedy got killed, he didn't want, he want to pull out of vietnam, okay, and that was orchestrated from that. Also the bay of pigs and cia has something to do with it, but, but, but, maybe the mafia, but, but he got taken out by our own government.

Speaker 1: 32:27

Ok, and none of these assassinations, whether it be Martin Luther King or RFK or President Trump or Ronald Reagan, right, these guys, they say, oh, he acted alone. First thing, the press says oh, he acted alone. No, no, no, no, I'm sorry they don't act alone. No, no, no, no, I'm sorry they don't act alone. And we may never find out what's behind President Trump's attempted assassination. I will never be convinced.

Speaker 1: 32:59

He acted alone, which Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell speech before he left office over 60 years ago. In his speech, elsa, it said the military industrial congressional complex. He took the word congressional out at the last minute. Ok, and the only people I hear talk about the military industrial complex, for the most part of President Trump and Tulsi Gabbard OK, and she's got a lot of guts to talk about it, right, but I don't agree with a lot of our social issues, but she does have a lot of good things to say about that. She left the democratic party and all that, right, but anyway, that's why they're going after president Trump. Okay, so we're trying to educate people, because one of the tenants is to, to, to, you know, not only say dumbed down, but control the education system.

Speaker 2: 33:46

Yes.

Speaker 1: 33:47

We're not teaching kids, of course, how to think. We're teaching them what to think Right.

Speaker 2: 33:52

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 33:53

And this college kid I had dinner with one night. She was uh, she knew I ran for U S Congress. I didn't talk about that. And uh, and I'm an Adam Smith, uh, uh, economist, like Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell and Walter E Williams, all those guys, they're my heroes in terms of economics. Art Laffer Okay, she's a Keynesian, which basically says you know, the government's going to stimulate the economy by infusing money into the economy. Well, where do they get the money from? The Fed either creates it out of air, which is the definition of inflation. By the way, the expansion of the money supply is why we have inflation. That is inflation. The result is we have higher prices because you've got dollars that are worth. Anything that you have more of is worth less. Okay, and I use that example with baseball cards for my grandson.

Speaker 2: 34:42

That's a perfect example. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:44

If there's one Mickey Mantle baseball card in the world versus a million, what do you think would be worth more? At 10 years old, he said well, poppy, if there's only one, it would be worth a gazillion dollars, he gets it he's following in his Poppy's footsteps.

Speaker 1: 34:59

I think, Well, how does a 10 yearyear-old kid get it? And AOC, who has an economics degree, doesn't get it right, right? Well, maybe they do get it. See, that's the other issue here, right? Yes, they think all of this stuff is by incompetence. It is not. They are very competent in terms of what they're doing to our country, right?

Speaker 2: 35:16

That's the biggest mistake, right Underestimating their intelligence really.

Speaker 1: 35:22

Exactly, really exactly exactly, uh, and they're better at it, you know, quite frankly, than the people that want to do the right thing.

Speaker 1: 35:27

but uh, and notice, I didn't say republican democrat, because it's on both sides just you know I'm saying so, uh, anyway, uh, I'm just trying to, you know, get people educated and get them aware.

Speaker 1: 35:39

And I had a chance to talk to jason miller, who's trump's personal advisor, a while back here. Lake invited me to a party after the Trump rally and I said to Jason, I said you know President Trump did, of all the things he did the Supreme Court appointments, what he did with regulation and taxes, foreign policy, what he did with Israel in Jerusalem, how he should have won three Nobel Prizes for the peace accords that he brokered in the middle East I mean, that was off the charts, unbelievable, how that worked. Of all the great things he did, right, to me, the biggest thing he did was use the word swamp and expose people to what's really going on in Washington, okay, and in our government, in our corporations, right, right. But I said he now has to take it to the next level. I said to Jason, I said I hope he starts talking about the globalist Marxist attack on our country.

Speaker 2: 36:34

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 36:35

And ironically, he is starting to, and he's starting to, so I'm going to take credit for that, okay.

Speaker 2: 36:39

I think you should, I think you absolutely should, definitely.

Speaker 1: 36:45

I'll stop there. But you know, we're just trying to get people educated. We're trying to bring people in like you who have a point of view and sometimes hearing it from different people and what your thoughts and how you came to your realizations are. But I always said this, you know, when I ran for Congress, they said, well, how are you going to decide how to vote? I said, look, I'm going to look at three things, not in this order. I'm going to listen to you because I'm your representative. I'm going to consult the Constitution, because if it's not constitutional, I'm not voting for it, which means I would never vote for a budget Okay, never, and I don't care who's president. And three, my Lord, jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 37:25

Now people don't realize the Constitution was founded on Christianity. Okay, so I know Jesus and the Constitution are going to be in concert, right? So I don't have to worry about that, right? But I said that. And then the other question I would get is how do we know we can trust you? And here's my answer why the hell would you trust a politician, right?

Speaker 2: 37:47

That's a great answer. That's a great answer, it is.

Speaker 1: 37:50

You want a guarantee, go to Home Depot and buy a refrigerator. They'll give you a guarantee. Okay, I'm not going to give you a guarantee. I'm as corruptible as you are. Sure. How can I even trust you? Okay, right, and I said that's the problem. We're putting our faith in these politicians. Your job is to be informed, right, and your job is to hold me accountable.

Speaker 2: 38:12

Now I will do what I can to earn your trust, but please, I don't want you to trust me.

Speaker 1: 38:17

Okay, I don't want that. And people would clap when I heard that question. Answer other candidates is well, you know I don't beat my dog and I don't cheat my wife, and you know that's not the answer. Okay, I don't want you to trust me.

Speaker 2: 38:30

I mean you don't use double speak and word salads and answer questions with you know a non-answer. You don't do any of those things. No, I'm very direct.

Speaker 1: 38:38

How strange and novel. I'm very direct. I'm very direct and it's a curse and a blessing, by the way, at the same time. But yeah, and so you know, that's the problem that we are not taking the time to be informed To your point earlier in. You know we have this internet now, you know, on my phone I have more information I can get on that phone.

Speaker 2: 39:00

Touch a button. You don't even have to. You can speak into your phone. You don't even have to tap anything, you just speak into it and ask it a question. You can get any answer.

Speaker 1: 39:08

Right, well, the problem is. The problem is that you know, we have so much information at our fingertips. I think today we are probably the least informed.

Speaker 2: 39:18

Yeah, it's very true, yeah, we're, we're, we're in a society now that's conditioned to getting our news from memes and soundbites. And you know quick, you know under seven seconds, I think, the attention span for like a news article you know it's, it's scary. And then you add. The next layer of that, of course, is the wealth of manipulated or misinformation that you get from these search engines that are heavily not influenced, run by biased people.

Speaker 2: 39:52

So you know I mean the whole Google AI fiasco when George Washington was coming up as a black man, and you know all of these crazy things because you know humans are inputting the information for them to access. So you know, they just had Google caught him suppressing Donald Trump in the search search results and you know, and they had to rectify that like, oops, we didn't know that was happening. You know big crock, you know what, and. But that's the thing you need to be. You need people who are educated, who are aware, who are paying attention. And, yes, absolutely it's exhausting, it's truly exhausting. But when you look at what's actually at stake here, if you have kids and grandkids and just simply are a caring human being who want a safe, better world for ourselves and our children and our grandchildren and their children, you have to know what's going on. So, yeah, I just had my soapbox moment.

Speaker 1: 40:51

That's good. That's good Because I think it takes a lot of work to do that, to do what you just said, but it's your job as a citizen. It's your job, and and and uh, it's your obligation, right? And the tyrants are counting on us being lazy, Right? They're counting on that, Okay, and uh, along with dumbing down. And then, of course, you know, when you overburden people with taxes, force people to you know, work, multiple jobs, you're just exhausting everybody. Nobody has time to do this, you know, and it does take a lot of work, as you, as you know, and and yes and it's not easy.

Speaker 1: 41:26

you know and and so, and then the ability to be able to discern what you're reading is a whole other avenue for another day, right, but that's a big deal too. And so first thing I do, by the way, when I read an article, is I find out who the author is, and I do research on the author and I try to understand yeah, I try to understand. Well, what's the bent of this person, what are they saying, that kind of thing. And that's the first thing I do, not to say I won't continue to read the article, but then I'll have a little bit of framework or where the person's coming from you know.

Speaker 2: 41:59

Well, yeah, now you know, when I research a topic that we'll be talking about on the podcast, or just simply that I want to talk about or learn more about, I'll, I'll and I'm always amazed by that. You know, you could take this very same topic, headline, whatever you want to call it plug it in and read two different articles from two you know that are supposed to be journalistic and the perspectives on them are so polar opposite that it actually kind of like makes your head spin a little bit. Like how, like where can we? Just I, can someone, I make this plea, probably on a monthly basis Can someone just give us the facts, just tell me the story of what actually happened, what was actually said.

Speaker 2: 42:42

I want to know your opinion of it, or your you know what I mean Like it's so. That's, I think, is what is exhausting for for people, people like me, people even less interested in in, involved in me, who maybe might want to get a little bit more information on things like who do you believe? What do you listen to? Because you're getting so many different stories about the same thing.

Speaker 2: 43:03

It's, it's crazy, it's like that whole thing, there's two sides and somewhere in there are three sides. Is her somewhere in the middle? Is the truth right?

Speaker 1: 43:12

well, let me give you a statistic, okay, and you tell me if this is false, right? 100 of all fatal auto accidents last year. Auto accidents involve tires, involve cars with black tires, so don't, don't drive a car with black tires, right?

Speaker 1: 43:33

simple so one of the things we miss in critical thinking, and it's not being taught in schools, is the whole idea of causation and correlation. Okay, so I correlated all these accidents with black tires, but there's no, it's not, there's no causation, okay, um, and so I know somebody's probably gonna write into you and say there is, but I'm sure they will.

Speaker 1: 43:53

You know, all prisoners on death row had milk as a child. So don't feed your kids milk, Right? So you know. And so people look at data like that and they accept it. Like if I said to you, people who eat yogurt live five years longer than people who don't, we're not talking about. The people who eat yogurt probably don't drink, they exercise, they do all that, but that's not the equation. Okay, so I could be 500 pounds and if I eat yogurt, I'm going to live another five years.

Speaker 1: 44:21

No you're not Right and so see what I'm saying. Yeah, it's a matter of you know.

Speaker 2: 44:26

I think the thing that needs to be taught which of course they're not going to teach in the schools is critical thinking. You know to, to ask all the external questions, not just you know. If somebody says Donald Trump is a racist, you know, and they just go Donald Trump is you know, they just repeat it. So instead they need to be taught to say, well, why can you give me instances where he was a racist? And, by the way, they need to be credible. You know, it can't be my brother's, sister's, cousin's best friend said that he heard someone say it.

Speaker 1: 44:58

You know because that's usually the gist of it.

Speaker 2: 45:00

You know it's just some that's critical thing.

Speaker 1: 45:02

So yeah, critical thinking man, well, you're also going to remember too that what you don't say is a lie too, if it's not, if it's going to, if we're going to paint the picture the wrong way. You know, and you know we all have confirmation bias, we all do, but you know being able to really critically think about something and take a position on it, but not just, as you said, don't just read the headlines. You know, lord, don't do that. That's what really upsets me when these people say how can we trust you? Don't trust the government, my God.

Speaker 2: 45:35

Right, Didn't Ronald Reagan say the best? I think you all know that I've always felt. The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Speaker 1: 45:48

Yeah, trust, but verify, yes, yes, yes. But you know, verify, yes, yes, yes. As much as I love President Trump, I've been critical of some of the things he did.

Speaker 1: 45:59

Absolutely and rightly so. I'll give you an example. He raised terrorists on China. That is not the president's job. That's in Article 1, Section 8. The Congress can only establish terrorists. I don't like the fact he did that, even though I do like the fact that terrorists got raised for China. Be careful what you like, because if you pick and choose the violations of the constitution, if you pick and choose what you like, you'll rue the day someday that they're going to do something that's not constitutional that you don't like Okay, and so that's why I'm really clear on that as a doctrine.

Speaker 1: 46:29

You know, every decision, every political question I get asked, the first thing I think about is that is it in concert with the Constitution? Ok, and so I don't care if you like the idea or not, like to do a reimbursement, you could love it, right, you guess? Oh, my God, this is the right thing to do and really believe that. But the president can't spend money. That, but the president can't spend money. That's Congress's job Number one. Number two transferring money from A to B is unconstitutional, even though we do it all the time.

Speaker 1: 47:04

And the thing about that too, is when the government takes your money and gives it to somebody else, and the founders were very clear. The federal government was not for charity, but the general welfare clause. I got an episode on on that. They got all miscombobulated in the courts. But anyway, if they take money from you and give it to somebody else, the government owns you both right right and that's what they want.

Speaker 2: 47:22

They want control, they want control yeah, absolutely, and that that is ultimately. I mean that that's like the. That sums it up perfectly, like this is what everything is really about. This isn't about this is, I don't? You know, maybe it goes back as far back as when the Constitution was written, because that was when they were actually thinking about for the people, you know. So I don't know that the moment in time if there was, I don't think it was a specific moment, but obviously there was a moment in time where that shifted and it became right, like it. Just, it slowly probably just morphed into power, power, power, power, power, control, money, you know all of those things, you know, absolute power absolutely corrupts, right, we all, we all know that, and yet we, we forget, we forget that that's the case and obviously we're dealing with a government that has way too much power and control and is making way too much money in the jobs that they're doing, so none of it makes any sense and really shame on us for not holding them accountable.

Speaker 2: 48:24

And I love that you tell your constituents like hold me accountable, Hold me accountable, Don't just blindly trust me. That's absurd.

Speaker 1: 48:43

Because I'm a nice guy, I say nice things to you. You know, no, absolutely not happened, including the court cases that redefine what this general welfare clause is all about. Okay, the general welfare clause. It's clear if you read the federalist papers and everything else. The founders meant that to be for the good of the nation, not the good for Mark Deluzio individually or Elsa or a company or anything. Right, that's what it meant. It got misconstrued in the courts and so that basically makes Article I, section 8, which is the enumerated powers of Congress okay of what they can do and write legislation around. It makes that almost null and void. Because now anybody who thinks we should spend money anybody being a congressman, let's say on a clause, should be okay because of the way the courts interpreted the general welfare clause in the constitution and this is why we can now spend not, we can, but we do spend money on things like Planned Parenthood. We get $500 million a year. We get $500 million of our taxpayer money a year. It's insane.

Speaker 1: 49:51

And whether or not you're for abortion or not, it doesn't matter, okay.

Speaker 2: 49:54

Right.

Speaker 1: 49:55

Right, it's an unconstitutional spend. Okay, and you got to remember the federalist papers were, were were editorial letters written by Hamilton and medicine and John Jay. Okay, to New York newspapers. New York was a holdout. They didn't trust and it's kind of ironic to think about it today, the way New York is positioned but New York was very skeptical of an overreaching federal government and they didn't want to sign on to the Constitution. If we didn't get New York, we wouldn't have ratified the Constitution.

Speaker 1: 50:23

Okay, so these three guys wrote these articles to newspapers to convince them that we're going to be a limited government, kind of funny. Hamilton was part of that, but, uh, but medicine was, medicine was a small government guy and john jay was too. But they wrote these articles to the new york newspapers to convince because, again, no internet back then, and and all that to convince new york to sign on to the constitution. Okay, all right, and those articles, those letters, became what's now known as the federalist papers. Okay, so you want to really get an understanding, you know, of the constitution, because the constitution is only 4,500 words, that's all it is. It's so crazy, it's a little book, you know, yeah, yeah, but you, if you go in any one of those things you want to talk about. You go to the federalist papers. You really get the meaning of what the founders were talking about.

Speaker 1: 51:14

That's awesome and we have just unbelievably stomped on our rights by stomping on the Constitution. So that's why we call our podcast the Constitution Solution One Podcast Under God, because we truly believe if we truly followed the founders' vision of the constitution, yeah, most of our problems would go away, most of them would okay, yeah, and but we're not doing that right now, and that's and that's where we're missing everybody. You know, understanding what really is going on here and the funny thing about it is everything's well.

Speaker 1: 51:47

We're gonna put president trump in place, which I hope we do, uh, and he'll fix all this? No, he won't, he'll. He'll be. He might delay it, but there is such a much underlying machine on a global basis trying to uncover our uproot, our way of life, that it's unbelievably massive. And I'm afraid I don't even know. You know, and I've done a lot of studying on this there's so much I know I'm not stupid enough to know that, I know it all. I know there's so much going on under the covers that nobody has an idea of. Okay, yeah, nobody. And that's what really scares me, right yeah, absolutely, and we are so in china.

Speaker 1: 52:25

I didn't talk about that, but we are so vulnerable to china right now they they at a switch. They can shut us down. Yeah, and I won't go into the details on that, but I've been asked to be in a think tank in Washington.

Speaker 2: 52:35

That's for another visit. That's for another visit, right Hurry.

Speaker 1: 52:44

But let me tell you it is scary how vulnerable we are and how we let ourselves get into that position.

Speaker 2: 52:47

Yeah, yeah. This is where people like you and I and people like us lean very, very heavily also at this time, on our faith and our and our trust in God that he is in control and you know whatever's going to happen, he's going to make things all all right, but boy it is. It's scary to live it and to watch it happening and feel like you are on a train with no brakes. You know that's because that's basically what it feels like. I feel like we're just, you know, headed towards an epic derailment, and it's scary.

Speaker 1: 53:22

Adam said that our constitution will not work without a religious and moral people. So good luck with that. Now, right, but you, I still believe, though, what you just said. I still believe that you know Jesus is going to, he'll take care of us. Okay, I mean, let's just face it. He brought us here to where we are with this great country, and we are a great country.

Speaker 1: 53:43

I've been to 45 countries. I've seen the unabashedness of this world, and every time I come home I want to kiss the ground. You know, and I try to teach that to my kids, because the town they grew up in let's just call it Niceville for a minute, so we don't reveal where we live or lived. But we went out to Disneyland one year when they were kids, and I hate Disney, by the way, and not because of the political things with it, I just hate Disney for a lot of different reasons, and I I don't think it's a mouse, I think it's a rat, but anyway, uh.

Speaker 1: 54:16

But we went to disneyland and then went down to san diego and went to the zoo and did all that stuff and got up and steven the guy, my little guy that got killed. He says dad, what are you going to do today. I said we're going to go to tijuana. What's that? It's about half an hour down the road from San Diego. I said and I've been there a million times I said I'm going to show you what a third world country is. What's a third world country? Dad and I took him down there and, as you said, you know little four-year-old kids begging for money with no shoes.

Speaker 2: 54:42

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 54:42

Walking on, you know, and walking on stones, and they got to see that, right, and I, and I want them to see that and scott actually writes about it in his book that he remembered that and I said, guys, you think disneyland is fantasy land? No, nice phil, where you live is fantasy land okay, nobody in the world on a percentage basis, lives like you do.

Speaker 1: 55:05

You don't get it. This is not normal. Where you live Anywhere in America for that matter this is not normal. The squalor I saw Elsa in this world. I still think about it and you know it just makes me want to vomit.

Speaker 2: 55:21

Yeah, yeah it's unimaginable for most of us.

Speaker 1: 55:26

It is unimaginable. That's why people have got to travel. And when I say travel, don't go to Paris, right. Go to Paris, it's a nice city. Go I love london, right. Go somewhere that they don't speak english and go somewhere. Don't go to australia. I love australia, they're great people, but it's so much like here. Okay, yeah, when I was in the outback I I looking at I was saying, geez, I think, I think I'm in in arizona, you know, because of the desert, you know.

Speaker 1: 55:51

But go to India and I love India. I have a client over there, I have clients, I have friends over there and they're great people. Okay, but go to India. Go to China, but don't stay in Shanghai. Go out to the outskirts, Go to these places to see what the real world is dealing with. Okay, and you'll come back and when you get off the plane you're going to kiss the ground.

Speaker 2: 56:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 56:13

Yeah, we don't get how good we have it. We most people don't get what we have. And and the risk that the founders took to do what they did, they, their, their honor, their sacred honor, their, their wealth and their lives lives. They pledged, they signed a death warrant when they signed the Declaration. And all these people oh, they're a bunch of old white men. Well, first of all, jefferson was 31 when he wrote the Declaration. So I just look at this and say we are so ill-informed about how good we have it and the people that really put their ass on the line.

Speaker 1: 56:45

I had a meeting once with Phil Graham from Texas and Patrick Toomey me. I was at a political conference out in uh latrobe, uh a fundraiser, and I was having dinner with him and phil graham gets up and he pontificates all his. You know what he thinks is going on and we had two veterans at the table. One guy was a marine, he flew, flew, uh, he flew in the korean war and uh, another guy was in the Korean War and another guy was in the Army. And I said I'd like to make a toast to John and Willie, the two veterans at this table. There were about 20 of us, right. I said, let's understand, it is not the politician who brings us our freedoms Right. It's guys like John and Willie who do.

Speaker 2: 57:27

And Phil Graham did not like that. He did not like that Too bad.

Speaker 1: 57:31

Yeah, exactly too bad.

Speaker 2: 57:32

Yeah, too bad.

Speaker 1: 57:33

So when I look at a real hero and I think I gave you my poem on heroes to me heroes are people like your husband, who's not only a military veteran but he's also a law enforcement officer. The people who put their ass on the line okay to protect others law enforcement officer, the people who put their ass on the line. Yeah, okay, to protect others.

Speaker 2: 57:54

Yeah, yeah, there's. There's nothing like that, there's nothing that compares to that. Really, you know, absolutely, and for your son who gave his life, for your other son who you know it's is lives the aftermath of that, with your whole family to experience that kind of loss, and you know, and it's great to have that knowledge and understanding, that you know he died in service for his country, for what he believed in, what your whole family believes in, but it doesn't bring them back. You know, so you have that and that's tremendous. And so you know, when you see, I think, probably for families like yours and, to a slightly lesser degree, ours, when you know those things, when you know, when you know the people who have sacrificed and who continue to do so on a regular basis, you have a different respect. You have a different understanding, different perspective.

Speaker 2: 58:49

And anyone who has never had that kind of perspective, honestly as someone, I can't. It's not that I can't take them seriously, it's that I can't take them seriously when they complain. I think that's really what it is when you complain about this country and you know how you're so angry that the new iPhone, whatever isn't out yet, and you know the injustice, you know the absurdity and calling people heroes and brave who just you know, I don't know put on a dress or something. Yeah, yeah, those are the kind of things I have a problem with.

Speaker 1: 59:18

Like, if we want to, if we want to go down the line of what's brave and what's heroic, that's not going to be on my list, you know, but when you're better half, uh, whether your husband, your wife, your son, your daughter, your father, your mother, when they leave the home and you don't know if they're coming back right firefighters, police, military, okay, that maybe is a very good litmus test as to whether or not they're heroes. You know, as a, as a kid, I used to idolize the Boston. I'm a Boston Red Sox. Carl E Skremski, you know he was my hero and all due respect to Carl, and I have his signed bed up on my wall over here. You know he's not a hero. Okay, people call me a hero. Oh, you're a hero. No, I'm not. I didn't don the uniform, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:00:06

Right.

Speaker 1: 1:00:06

I raised two kids. Yeah, we categorize differently, you know we respect the gratitude.

Speaker 1: 1:00:12

Yeah, and people can argue with me about it all they want. That's fine, because they can have their definitions of a hero, but my hero is what I just said, and the only thing I'll say about Steven, who passed away, is probably my one failing as a father, is that I'm a Boston Red Sox fan and somehow he grew up to be a Yankee fan. Okay. So, yeah, I hate to admit that publicly, you know, but it was funny, you know for his now funny, but you know, I actually uh, got to Bernie Williams who used to play right field for the Yankees. Uh, and he, stephen, loved Bernie Williams. Uh, he's a classical guitarist and I had him already set up to play at his wedding.

Speaker 2: 1:00:45

Wow, really. Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1: 1:00:50

He didn't know. He didn't know about it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:52

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:00:54

Wow, I was going to be surprised, you know, and uh, but I had to call him and say Nope, sorry, he's not going to be there.

Speaker 2: 1:01:01

So you know you're a part of a select group of people that, honestly, a part of a select group of people that, honestly, no one wants to be a part of, right, no one, no one wants to to be a part of that group. You know, and there is certainly honor in all the gratitude and all of the things, but, as we said before, you know it doesn't bring back your loved one. You know it's tragic and sad and at the very least, you get the. You get that gratitude and understanding from people who know you know, from people who get it, who value that. And thank goodness, because you know, unfortunately there's there's a frighteningly large amount of people or it seems to be in the world that have lost perspective on all of that.

Speaker 2: 1:01:42

But you know I'll, I'll bring it around town and bring it back to again. I'll say I'm so grateful to you and people like you who are, you know, standing up and speaking out and saying the things and sharing, like, most importantly, sharing the information and the knowledge base that you have. It's just tremendous and I do believe that it makes a difference, that it is making a difference. You know one person, one person, is going to watch this show. I'd like to believe it's going to be a lot more than that. Um, one person besides me cause I'm a, I'm a given uh are going to go and watch those episodes and they're going to educate themselves and learn things that they didn't know and then they're going to come back on many, many times to share.

Speaker 1: 1:02:29

Well, we just scratched the surface. Really, there's so much to talk about, you know. But you know, I really believe things happen for a reason. I believe in a really weird way, and this may sound really weird. Losing Stephen was meant to be and a lot of things favorable good happened since he died. I opened up an outreach program for veterans to start businesses. I helped a lot of veterans and one veteran told me she said I'd be in a gutter right now if it wasn't for you. You know, god gave me and you gifts. You have gifts and those gifts are on loan. They're not mine, right? And if I don't use those gifts to help others, then that to me is a sin. Yeah, so.

Speaker 2: 1:03:21

Yeah, absolutely Faithful stewards of God's graces, absolutely, and I agree with you 100%. I believe that is our job and our purpose and our mission. And I believe wholeheartedly that you know that he does work all things for the good of those who love him. And that doesn't mean the bad things aren't going to happen to us. We're all a testament to that, some more than others, that you know the bad things are going to happen, no matter what. So it's what you do with the bad things that happen to you that are going to matter the most. And you know everything you just said is is just testament to that.

Speaker 2: 1:03:52

And boy oh boy, you know you wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call us lucky, I would just call us blessed. I would say that we're very blessed to be able to have these platforms. You know, and that was a huge part of when my stuff started taking off and I started getting more followers and and that was the big question Like so what's my purpose? Like what's the point? Why do I? Why am I getting this? Because I don't think I deserve to have this kind of reach and platform any more than anyone else does. So what's the purpose and the purposes to serve?

Speaker 1: 1:04:18

So um you know, and to spread, the word right, and you were doing, and you were doing that, you were doing that and you, you know. So, you know, that's that's kind of how I look at the world, and uh, there's all a reason for this, and uh, and sometimes I think the grief we're all going to have grief, and I don't try to compare my grief against anybody else's grief. Um, I remember losing my dog in fourth grade. Oh my God, I cried for three days in school, Um, but you know, I I don't want to compare my grief with anybody's grief, because we're all going to have grief, you know, and I have a poem called the grief monster, right, and how we kick his ass, we still kick his ass through life. We've always won, you know, and I think sometimes the grief that God introduces us to is a test in a lot of ways, and it's also a way not only to test us but to uh, compel us to grow us but to uh compel us to grow?

Speaker 2: 1:05:12

Yes, yeah, absolutely, Absolutely. You know one of my um favorite quotes, and it's attributed to a few different people, one of them being Churchill. I don't know who the originator of this quote is, so I just stick with Churchill. Um, but the the quote is that the price we pay for love is grief, and, and the first time I heard that, it just like knife right through my heart because the price is worth it. Like you get great love, and so the price is worth it. So I wouldn't trade, I wouldn't trade, and I would hope that no one would trade uh the love that they get in their lives, uh, whether it's from their children, uh, or their spouses or family members or friends, whatever the case is, um, great love is so worth the grief that we feel when we have loss, so I hope that helps somebody else who's grieving.

Speaker 1: 1:05:55

Yep, we all are. It's inescapable, you can't get away from it. It's a human condition. But then again it's like okay, well, what do you do with that?

Speaker 2: 1:06:05

Right, yeah, it's what you do.

Speaker 1: 1:06:07

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:06:08

Oh, my goodness, my friends on that note, um, we're, we're gonna, we're gonna call it. And uh, you already heard me ask him, you already heard me beg him to come back again and he said yes, I'm saying that. You said yes, I'm not even sure if you said yes but I said, yes, there's so much we could talk about.

Speaker 1: 1:06:24

So, uh, uh, yeah, I love, I love your show, I love your partner there. I listen to your podcast and episodes and they are fun to listen to and educational. Thank you, and you know, I think, keep doing what you're doing.

Speaker 2: 1:06:39

Thank you very much. I appreciate it so much and I'll be on with you. Is that next week? I think it's next week, I think right.

Speaker 1: 1:06:44

I think it is yeah, yeah. Yes, I'm so excited On all the stuff I gave you today, so give me a quick.

Speaker 2: 1:06:53

Oh, my goodness, my friend Mark, thank you so much. I look forward to our dinner when you come back this way for a, for a visit, and I will. I will talk to you next week and I'll see the Elsa.

Speaker 1: 1:07:07

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 1:07:09

Thank you so much. Take care.