In this episode, we tackle the significant shifts in the American socio-political climate. From controversial technologies like AI to the dynamic protests sweeping across cities, Karen Murray sheds light on the complexities facing today’s society. As cultural terms are dissected for their historical connotations, the discussion broadens to highlight fundamental differences in values shaping our nation. Tune in for an insightful exploration into America’s ideological divide and the escalating tensions that resonate through every level of our national dialogue.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Shooting the Breeze, brought to you by the team at Franktown Firearms, a family-owned, family-friendly shooting range in Franktown, Colorado. Franktown Firearms offers practical, defensive training as well as an impressive selection of firearms at the lowest tax rate, so you can develop confidence with your firearm. The team at Franktown Firearms believes the only difference between a beginner and an expert is practice. so they equip you to keep yourself and your family safe in a welcoming atmosphere. And now, here are your hosts of Shooting the Breeze.
SPEAKER 01 :
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Monday, everyone. Nice to be here with you all today. Thank you for tuning in to Shooting the Breeze, brought to you by Franktown Firearms and Colorado CQB. My name is Karen Murray, and I’m the lead instructor at Franktown Firearms. And if you haven’t been to Franktown Firearms in a while, you really should come back and check it out. And if you have never been to Franktown Firearms, what are you even doing? You can pick up that new handgun you’ve been wanting. You can grab some ammo or a sweet new blade or maybe a new holster or carry rig. You can ask about our memberships, which come with perks, by the way, so you can inquire about that. As you know, the requirements to get certified to apply for your concealed carry permit are changing drastically July 1st, so get in while you can for half the time and a lot less money. If you have questions about any of the new laws, you can send me an email directly at karen.murray at franktownfirearms.com, and I will try to answer your questions as best I can. You can also give me a call today if you’d like to ask me on the air. That’s fine, too. As a result of these new CHP requirements, Franktown Firearms has added three additional classes to accommodate anyone wanting to get this training in prior to that July 1st date when this new law goes into effect. You can go to Franktownfirearms.com and click on the calendar to sign up. It is really that simple. Do it before July 1st, people. After July 1st, the next class will be July 5th and twice the time and $100 more of your hard-earned money. If your current permit expires 90 days or more after the July 1st date, look for the refresher courses that will also be in compliance with this new law as well. We have several verified instructors that are going to be there to help you guys out. Those dates are going to be added very soon. So once again, keep your eye on the calendar at Franktownfirearms.com. You can call the shop with questions as well. That number is 720-770-7777. I’m going to tell you right now. We have a class on the 14th, which is coming up this Saturday, and then there’s also a class on the 15th that was added, which is this Sunday, and there’s a class on the 18th, which is obviously a weekday class that’s on a Wednesday, and then there’s an additional one on Friday, June 27th at 1 p.m., So those are the additional ones that we’ve added. So check it out. Get this done. Get it done before July 1st. You’re not going to regret doing that unless you like sitting in a classroom for eight hours. You know, that’s good too, whatever. If you’d like to talk about anything that I’m going to cover today, you can call the studio at 303-477-5600. Luke will be kind enough to patch you through, and we can chat. So I think I’m going to be kind of dovetailing with Kim Monson’s hour, this last hour on what I’m about to talk about. Last week I had some items that I wanted to cover and didn’t get a chance to, kind of ran out of time. So since I’m still seeing videos online about this subject, and obviously other people are talking about it as well, I think it’s still relevant enough to discuss today. So I ended last Monday’s show talking about killer robots in the Japanese lab that killed 29 lab employees. Luke played a portion of that audio, and then I had him cut it off because we were running out of time. But I wanted to expand on that just a little bit. In my opinion, and evidently Dr. June Depp’s opinion, AI is a double-edged sword. It is a very useful tool, although a person could become dependent on its intelligence and its ease of use. I often worry about kids in school right now becoming so dependent on AI that they don’t do a lick of their own homework, and they actually… just start getting complacent and lazy and their brain gets lazy. And, you know, that could cause all kinds of problems. So, because you really can find out anything or do just about anything, craft papers, whatever you want to do with AI. It’s amazing. It’s an amazing technology. And I want to just send all you Gen Xers and older back to the good old days. Do you remember going to the library and whether it’s your school library or mostly the public library in your town, and you pull out the drawers of the old card catalog, and you look up the book you need, and then you wander the aisles of the library trying to find it. Do you remember that? Or do you remember microfiche combing through old newspaper articles on that little projector? You see, this is why Gen X just rocks. We are the only generation to really have done it all and seen it all. Cathode ray tube televisions with rabbit ear antennas and rotary phones and party lines and stick shift trucks with gun racks in the rear windows, in school parking lots with guns in them, under dash 8-track players recording our favorite songs from the radio with the DJ talking through the first bars. Do you guys feel me? You know what I’m talking about? I went down memory lane there just a little bit, but when the internet became a thing in the 90s, obviously that changed the world. It changed a lot of things. We thought Google was advanced when it rolled out, and it was, and everyone was using it. But AI engines like Microsoft’s Copilot and Grok and ChatGPT, that is a whole other level of convenience and technology that That frankly, just, I don’t, you know, it can go either way. It can go either way. So regarding AI and the race to super intelligence, I believe we’re headed into some uncharted kind of dangerous waters. I also believe that any company, sole company or system with the power to see and hear, track, trace, analyze, and act on that analysis will never be good for normal people like you and me. So you’ve heard of Palantir. I think that’s how you say it. Palantir Technologies, publicly traded company founded in 2003 that specializes in software platforms for big data analytics, particularly for government and intelligence agencies. They offer platforms like Foundry and Gotham designed to help users analyze and visualize complex data to gain insights and make decisions. Now, We all know that AI can be used for good, but it can certainly be used for power and control, right? I got this post from my son-in-law from a verified ex-account, Ian Smith Jr., and I’m going to read it for you, and you can make up your own mind whether you think he’s right, but at the very least, it’s got to make you think. It says, quote, Donald Trump just handed Palantir the contract to build the federal AI database, which will be the single most dangerous consolidation of power in modern American history. Palantir isn’t a tech company. It’s a surveillance machine born inside the CIA, funded through In-Q-Tel and run by Peter Steele, a billionaire data oligarch who openly brags about crushing right-wing populist movements in Europe with his software. Now he’s here, building the backbone of American AI. This is the same Peter Thiel who groomed the character of J.D. Vance, shapes national AI policymaker as an unelected power broker, pretends to be anti-woke while embedding Palantir across every global intelligence agency, and Trump, the guy who ran on Drain the Swamp, just handed him the keys. You are watching a merger of big tech, big government, and artificial intelligence branded as patriotism. They’re not creating tools. They’re building infrastructure for digital authoritarianism. Palantir has already been used for pre-crime arrests and pandemic lockdown enforcement, and now it’s being given access to national databases under the flag of security. This isn’t Patriot Act 2.0. This is Revelation 13 in real time. He causes all to receive the mark. No man might buy or sell that he had the mark. That’s obviously Revelation 13. You think the mark will look like a chip? It’ll look like this. An AI assigning you a risk score, a predictive model determining your access to banking, travel, medicine, a tech priesthood deciding who’s dangerous, And Trump is funding it. Palantir is the digital beast system. Thiel is its architect. And conservatives are sleepwalking into their own captivity, cheering as their anti-establishment hero turns the surveillance state into a machine learning monster. This isn’t freedom. This is babble in binary. But when evil people begin using it for power and control, we’re going to have a tough time getting out of this. I’m not saying that I believe that Trump is evil. Now, this is my words, not his. I’m not saying that I think Trump is evil, but Palantir Technologies is going to be handed more power and powerful surveillance capability than we’ve seen one company have. Remember, absolute power corrupts absolutely. So ending that segment with that phrase, absolute power corrupts absolutely, is I’m going to switch into something rather light. I’ll get on to some heavier stuff a little bit later. But my husband and I were talking, we’ve been talking for, I don’t know, weeks now about doing a show on different phrases and how they originated. And I thought it would be fun today with all this yucky stuff going on, which I am going to talk about here pretty soon. Don’t think I won’t. But it’s kind of interesting to know that I think it’s called entomology of different phraseology. And, you know, we say things without even thinking about it. And then you don’t know how that phrase originated. So I’m going to talk first about that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And I wanted to find out what that meant and who said that first. And guess where I went? To AI, to chat GPT. Right? Because, you know, this is the good part that it can do. It can teach you something that you don’t already know. So the full quote of the absolute power thing, it says, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. And that quote was from Lord Acton in a letter to Bishop Mandel Creighton in 1887. So who was Lord Acton? John Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton, 1834 to 1902, was an English historian, politician, and moral philosopher. He was deeply concerned with the dangers of concentrated political power and believed that morality must stand above authority, especially in evaluating historical figures. And then it goes on with the context of the quote. Acton wrote the line in response to a debate over how to judge historical figures like the popes and monarchs. Bishop Creighton had argued for leniency when judging those in high office. Acton firmly rejected this, saying no one is exempt from moral judgment, not even kings or church leaders. So the philosophical meaning, power tends to corrupt, means that when someone gains power, their ethics often begin to erode, not always, but frequently. And we can put this into the political conversation all day long right now, right? Absolute power corrupts absolutely means that unchecked or total power almost inevitably leads to tyranny, abuse, and moral failure. So that’s that. It goes on to talk a little bit more about unlimited power. A quote from James Madison, unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it. And then it goes on with some legacy stuff. The phrase is often cited in discussions of dictatorships, government overreach, corporate monopolies, or even interpersonal dynamics. It’s a cautionary reminder that no one should be trusted with unchecked authority because power tests character like little else does. So a couple of other phrases that I actually, I just asked ChatGPT to come up with some phrases, some commonly used phrases, and I wanted to know where they originated. So it gave me a big long list and I think it’s fun and interesting. So How many of you guys said, talking to somebody, that you’re just going to have to bite the bullet? Have you ever said that before? The meaning to endure a painful or unpleasant situation with courage. That’s bite the bullet. Its origin dates back to when soldiers were given a bullet to bite. I don’t know why they were given a bullet. Why not just a stick like they did in Yellowstone before they branded someone? I mean, really, a bullet? But they were given a bullet to bite during surgery if anesthesia wasn’t available, especially in the 19th century. So any of you guys who have had surgery, you can just go ahead and imagine how painful that would be. Another commonly used one is break the ice. We’ve all used that phrase many times, the meaning to initiate conversation in a social setting or relieve tension. The origin comes from the practice of ships breaking ice to forge a path in frozen waters, often used metaphorically in literature from the 1600s onward. Now, I thought this one was really interesting. It’s let the cat out of the bag. Have you guys used that phrase? The meaning to reveal a secret, often unintentionally. The origin, possibly from medieval markets, where a piglet, which was valuable, was sold in a bag. If a cat was found inside instead, the deceit was uncovered. So I thought that was funny. You think you’re getting a piglet and you get a cat. Cats don’t make good bacon, I don’t think. And then saved by the bell. We’ve all used that term, that meaning rescued from an unwanted situation at the last moment. And there’s two different origins here, often linked to boxing, where the bell signals the end of a round, saving a fighter from a knockout. It is also tied to 19th century safety coffins equipped with bells to prevent premature burial. And I’d heard that one before, that there’s actually a handle inside that goes to a bell outside. And if, you know, if somebody thought you were dead and you really weren’t and you came back to life, you know, came to conscious or whatever, in your casket, you could ring that bell and somebody would come and dig you up, I guess. Another one, kick the bucket. We all know what that means. That’s origin, possibly from animals being hung for slaughter and kicking the bucket beneath them. Another theory is from people standing on a bucket to hang themselves, which is kind of gruesome, but… This one I thought was great, mad as a hatter. I’m sure you’ve heard that or used that. That means completely insane or irrational. The origin of that, hat makers in the 18th and 19th centuries often used mercury in their work, leading to mercury poisoning, which caused erratic behavior. Now, all of these, obviously, these are not 100% completely factual. You can believe what you want to believe, but I think they’re kind of fun and they’re kind of interesting. A dime a dozen, very common or of little value. In the 1800s, goods like eggs or apples were advertised as a dime a dozen to emphasize abundance and low cost. The writing on the wall is another one that we use often, and that is a warning or sign of inevitable doom, and that origin is actually biblical. From Daniel 5, a mysterious hand writes a prophecy on a palace wall foretelling the fall of the Babylonian king. Burning the midnight oil, that’s staying up late, working or studying. Luke, did you ever burn the midnight oil?
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That’s my entire life.
SPEAKER 01 :
Every moment. I doubt that. Every moment of every day, burning the candle at both ends or burning the midnight oil. That actually originated before electricity when people used oil lamps to work at night. The phrase dates back to at least the 1600s. And then we have turn a blind eye to deliberately ignore something. And that’s origin is Admiral Horatio Nelson, who was blind in one eye, allegedly ignored orders during a battle by putting a telescope to his blind eye and saying he didn’t see the signal, which I thought was kind of great. The next one, upper crust, and I’ve heard this one before, and what ChatGPT spit out was exactly what I’d heard before. It refers to wealthy, elite, or high society. The origin is in the 17th and 18th centuries, bread was baked in communal ovens. and the top part, the upper crust, was often cleaner and more desirable. This better portion came to symbolize higher status. Some sources also tie it to Old English feasts, where the upper part of a pie or loaf was reserved for nobility. And then I wanted to know about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. which I always thought was hilarious. And kind of nowadays, it’s just so counterintuitive. It isn’t even funny, but it just means don’t discard something valuable while getting rid of something undesirable. And it’s German in origin, first recorded in 1512. It likely reflected literal shared family bath practices where a baby might be the last to bathe, possibly leading to the humorous exaggeration that someone could forget the child in the dirty water bath. But nowadays, isn’t it funny? Nowadays, we would bathe the baby first and take our baths last, right? If we were in that same situation, we certainly wouldn’t bathe an infant in filthy water that, you know, five people just bathed in, right? That’s disgusting. The pot calling the kettle black. criticizing someone for a fault one also possesses. That dates back to the 1600s when cooking pots and kettles were made of cast iron and blackened by soot over an open flame. The phrase mocks hypocrisy as both pot and kettle are equally sooty. And then something that we questioned years ago, the whole nine yards. why do we say the whole nine yards? And I remember asking my mom, God rest her soul. And she said, we just asked her, I kind of, we put it out there like, what does that mean? What, you know, where did that come from? And she’s like, well, it means everything. It means everything, all of it, the whole nine yards. And like, I know what it means, but how did somebody come about with, you know, using that phrase? So the meaning, everything, the full extent of something, And it says, this one is famously murky, but common theories include World War II fighter planes held 27 feet or nine yards of ammunition belts. So giving the whole nine yards meant using all your ammo. Concrete trucks or fabric bolts being nine yards in volume or length. And then the last one, first attested in print in the 1960s, its exact root remains debated, but the phrase became popular among soldiers and in sports circles. So, and then another one, and I thought this one was great too, cut to the chase. And that means to get to the point. And its origin is from early silent films, especially westerns and action movies. Scenes would often cut to a climactic chase scene to keep viewers engaged. It became shorthand for skipping unnecessary buildup. And then we have the term riding shotguns. meaning sitting in the front passenger seat of a vehicle, obviously. And that one came from the Old West where stagecoaches were often guarded by someone carrying a shotgun to defense against bandits. That person sat next to the driver, hence the modern usage. And then got a couple more here. Pleased as punch. I don’t really use that term very often, but some people in the South do. I know that. That means very happy or content. And this comes from the Punch and Judy puppet shows of the 17th century. Punch, a gleefully violent and mischievous character, was always delighted with himself no matter what chaos he caused. And these are just really funny. They’re going to get more crude as I go along, so I’m going to cut out the foul language, but these are funny. Have you ever heard the term, he doesn’t know blank from Shinola? You guys have all heard it, right? That means he’s utterly clueless, he can’t tell something worthless from something valuable, or more broadly, he lacks even basic understanding or common sense. It’s crude, humorous, and often used to mock someone’s ignorance. Now, what’s cute is that Shinola was a popular brand of shoe polish in the U.S., especially in the first half of the 20th century. The phrase plays off the idea that someone is so ignorant they can’t tell excrement from a tin of shoe polish. two things with very different purposes and appearance. It emerged in military slang during or after World War II and became widely popular in American vernacular through the 40s through the 70s. And then something that my father-in-law, my husband told me that my father-in-law used to talk to him or tell him back in the day when they were working on homes together and stuff is He doesn’t know if he’s a foot or horseback. And I didn’t use that at all. I never even heard it before, but he did. And evidently, it’s maybe that generation that was using it. And it means he’s confused, disoriented, or completely clueless about what’s going on. The modern equivalent, he doesn’t know if he’s coming or going. And the origin, the phrase is Western American in origin, dating back to the 1800s or early 1900s. In cowboy or ranch life, whether you were afoot or on foot or horseback was a big deal. It determined your mobility, status, and readiness. To not know if you’re afoot or horseback implied complete disorientation, like someone so overwhelmed they couldn’t even tell what mode of travel they were in. Usage, it says here, typically said that someone who’s been hit with too many decisions is lost in thought or just plain flustered. He’s been working so many double shifts, he don’t know if he’s a foot or horseback. So that’s pretty cute. And then I wanted to know, one that I put in there, I wanted to know where the term redneck originated. I’ve been called a redneck before. and I’ve also been called a hayseed before because I’m from Missouri, so I guess that just kind of comes with the territory. The term redneck has a long and complex history with roots that go deeper than most people realize. Today, it’s often used, sometimes proudly, sometimes as an insult, to describe rural, working-class white Americans, particularly from the South, but its origins are older, more varied, and more political than most folks know. Origin number one is Sunburned necks of farmers, most common folk origin, meaning rural laborers, especially white farmers who worked long days in the sun. Explanation, their necks would be literally sunburned or red from outdoor labor. Timeline 1800s onward, primarily in the South and Appalachia. Usage initially descriptive, sometimes condescending, but later embraced by some as a badge of pride and working class identity. Origin number two, political identity, the rednecks of the 1890s through 1920s, meaning those were poor farmers and laborers who organized politically against the elites. Hmm, that also kind of rings true right now, doesn’t it? Details, in the 19th century and early 20th century, members of the populist movement and later coal miner union organizers were called rednecks because they wore red bandanas around their necks. Most famously, during the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 in West Virginia, the largest labor uprising in U.S. history, about 10,000 coal miners wore red neckerchiefs as they fought for union rights. So in this context, redneck equals working man, working class fighter. Earliest known uses. The term first appeared in print in the U.S. around the 1830s, referring to poor white southern farmers. Some Scottish usage predates this and may have influenced the term. The 17th century Scotland rednecks referred to Presbyterians who wore red cloths on their necks as a sign of rebellion against angelic rule. U.S. modern connotation, by the mid-20th century, redneck was more commonly used as an insult, implying ignorance, racism, or backwardness. In more recent decades, many people, especially in the country or southern culture, have reclaimed it as a symbol of pride and blue-collar values, self-reliance, and a rural way of life. literal meaning, sunburn neck, the political meaning, working class fighter, cultural twist, once a slur, now sometimes embraced. So that’s pretty fun. Let’s see here. And then there’s another one that I found interesting. I’m going to go ahead and go to break. And when we come back from break, I’ll go on with some more of these, I guess, rather could be construed as derogatory, but some of us might find them endearing. We’ll be right back.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
And we are back. I was just talking about some origins of different phrases that we use all the time. And I was just in the middle of doing some, I guess what you’d call slurs or cut downs or whatever. But right now we’re talking about redneck and I’ve got hillbilly and cracker and white trash among these as well. So I’m going to, it’s just kind of interesting to see how these terms came about. So let’s see, already covered redneck. So I’m going to go to hillbilly now. Origin’s early 1900s Appalachian region first known print usage was in 1900 in the New York Journal. Literal meaning, Billy was a common name. Hill refers to mountainous rural areas, essentially, a country bumpkin named Billy in the hills. Symbolic meaning, rural Appalachian folks, often portrayed as poor, uneducated, and living in isolation, Modern use, sometimes affectionate, but often used to stereotype people from Appalachia as uncultured or primitive. Reclaimed. Many Appalachian artists and communities have embraced hillbilly as a term of cultural pride. For example, hillbilly music. So that’s kind of interesting. And then cracker. And this one’s funny. Origin, colonial America, especially Georgia and Florida. First recorded use was in the 1760s. literal meanings, and these are just theories, from crack, meaning to boast or to tell tales used in Shakespeare’s King John, from the cracking of whips by livestock drivers. Symbolic meaning, Originally a derogatory British term for poor Scots-Irish settlers in the American South, evolved into a regional identifier for white Southerners, especially in Georgia and Florida. Modern use in Florida and Georgia, some people proudly call themselves Florida Crackers, meaning descendants of pioneers or pioneer settlers. Is it still derogatory? Depends on tone and place. In some areas, it still carries a classist sting. And then last but not least, we’ve got white trash. The origin is mid-1800s in the U.S., in the southern U.S., the literal meaning poor white people, especially in contrast to wealthy landowners or slaves. Symbolic meaning, class-based slur for impoverished, uneducated white Americans, often used to imply laziness, filth, or moral failure. Modern use, still heavily derogatory, rarely reclaimed. It’s used to stigmatize both class and behavior, often weaponized by both upper-class whites and outsiders. Heaviest of the four, it’s the most toxic class slurs in American English. So, yeah. And then so that’s all for that. I just think that’s interesting. And I think that there are so many things that I say in everyday language. Number one is I use the Simpsons all the time. My husband and I and even our daughter, we’ve watched especially like the first five seasons of The Simpsons. We have pulled so many lines out of The Simpsons that we use on a regular basis that I can’t even – I should make a show about that because it’s just – It’s too funny, and it’s obviously an inside joke, and then I’ll say something from The Simpsons, and I’ll ask somebody, did you ever watch The Simpsons? And they’re like, no, we never watched. I’m like, dang it. So it’s kind of an inside joke, I guess, to just those people who watch The Simpsons. Luke, did you ever watch The Simpsons?
SPEAKER 04 :
Nope, not an episode.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re kidding me. See, I don’t like the new ones. Even probably from season eight on forward, I’m not a fan. Just some of the writing got a little weird. And now, of course, some of the videos and the creators that you see, I don’t know how much truth there is to it, but they’re saying that Simpsons predicted… this and that you know trump’s rise to power twice and predicted earthquakes and and mount saint helen eruption and all kinds of stuff so but anyway the first five seasons of the simpsons were just they were classic and so many great lines so anyway um so i’m going to talk um a little bit more i was talking earlier about palantir technologies and trump hand handing them a ton of power and control And I want you to know that I still support Trump. OK, let’s just put that out there right now. I also believe that there’s a lot more to this feud with Elon Musk than the media is telling us. I don’t think it’s. there’s just too many discrepancies, too much stuff that’s, that’s transpired. Um, and you know, Trump has praised him and he has praised Trump and then all of a sudden, bam, because of this big, beautiful bill. Now they’re just, they’re enemies. Now it just doesn’t make sense to me. And I don’t know. Some people think that it’s a hundred percent real, real feud, never going away. And some people think that it’s, it’s bogus and probably a distraction, whatever. But, um, I don’t know. It is two guys with big, huge egos. I know that for a fact, obviously. But I guess with that scenario, with two guys with big Texas-sized egos, you can play around with that a lot as well. So I don’t know. I tend to believe that it’s all for show, and it’s for a reason. And I think part of that reason is to get Democrats to demand the Epstein files. which is, you know, I guess the Democrats that would demand it would be ones that don’t appear in the files anywhere, right? So in general, I believe Trump has the best interest of the country at heart. I got a message from my dear friend Janice that I want to read for you. And it kind of drives home exactly what my views are on the state of the country right now. This is from a post from Michael McCune on Facebook. And this guy is out of Benson, Arizona. His profile says that he’s a martial arts practitioner. He’s the owner of Bushido of Benson Dojo, philosopher, strategist, and writer. And he says, this fight isn’t about Trump. It’s about the values Americans stand for. You can’t make it about Trump, or you can make it about Trump if you want. However, the truth is that the real conflict lies between two completely different sets of values. And I’ve said that before, too. It’s the worldview. They’re just not compatible with one another. Anyway, I digress. And only one can shape the future. I didn’t start the divide. I’m just not pretending it isn’t there. I’ve made my stand. The question is, will you make yours? This battle isn’t about one man. It’s about what we stand for. Let me make something perfectly clear to my Democrat and liberal acquaintances. While you love to make everything about Donald Trump, the division we’re experiencing in this country has nothing to do with one man. The real battle isn’t over a personality. It’s over principles. You don’t attack Trump because of how he talks or how he looks. You attack him because of what he represents. And whether you realize it or not, we, the people who support him, stand for the same values he champions. Your opposition to him is, at its core, opposition to us. If you read my recent post on liberalism, you’ll understand. There was a time when the divide between parties was narrow. We all shared the same fundamental ideals, and the differences primarily concerned how to achieve them. But that time is gone. conservatives have remained mainly rooted in the same principles for generations. It’s the left that has changed radically and rapidly. Ronald Reagan saw it coming decades ago when he said, I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me. At the time, people thought he was being dramatic. Now we know he was ahead of the curve. He saw what many of us didn’t until it slapped us in the face. Today, the divide is not about leadership styles or economic policy. It’s moral. It’s cultural. It’s spiritual. There is no middle ground between two opposing worldviews. No common ground between light and darkness or good and evil. You can argue over which side you believe is which, but that doesn’t change the reality. Two fundamentally opposing values cannot coexist in unity. One must give way to the other. So when you see me support Donald Trump, understand this. I don’t believe he’s perfect. No president is. Global politics is a complex arena, and every leader is bound to make mistakes. But I think he stands the best chance of defending the values this country was founded upon, values that many of us still hold sacred. After Vietnam, a new form of liberalism began to rise. Not the classic liberalism of free speech and individual liberty, but a radical ideology that began eroding traditional American values. For a long time, conservatives were shamed into silence. We were labeled, attacked, and mocked. And so for a time, we kept our heads down. But liberalism went too far, and now we’re speaking up again. This battle you see on social media, the one that’s bleeding into our schools, our families, our churches, it’s not petty. It’s not political theater. It’s a war for the soul of our nation. We can debate ideas. We can listen to each other. But the truth remains, a house divided cannot stand. Eventually, one set of values must win. Either we embrace a future where the government has more control and personal responsibility takes a backseat, where right and wrong are treated as just opinions, or we return to the foundation that made this nation strong. So when liberals accuse me of creating division, I remind them. I didn’t make the divide. I’m just unwilling to pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m not here to silence anyone. I welcome the debate. But the only way we move forward is by choosing a path. Because straddling the fence between two worldviews that contradict each other is not peace. It’s paralysis. I’ve made my choice. I stand for traditional American values, and I stand my ground. The only way to survive this battle is to spread the word and begin the conversation about how to reverse the dangerous trend. Don’t bow to fear or criticisms. That is their weapon of choice. Our weapon is knowledge. So that said, there’s parts of that that I completely agree with, and there’s a few parts that I don’t know. I don’t know. Again, I take a lot of this stuff, and I go back to the whole Q thing. And last week’s show, you heard me talk a lot about that and about the Q drops and about that picture of Trump that he was holding up the peace sign saying that it was a repost of a of a comment on another post. But bottom line is that that Trump retruthed a post that said that Biden was executed in 2020. So why he reposted that, I don’t know. I don’t know. But he had to have read it. He doesn’t re-truth everything. So there’s got to be something to that, whether it’s all true or partially true or whether Trump is just messing with a bunch of people and none of it’s true. I have no idea. I have no idea. But yes, I agree with this person, this Michael McCune guy, that everything is so divided and It isn’t even funny, and we can go right now and segue into this whole, the library, the drag queen story hour thing that’s going on in Chicago right now, and there’s protests going on out front. These drag queen story hours, there’s a couple of them. One of them is for like zero to 12 months or something. Really? Really? And I can see why people are freaking out. And then you’ve got the trans protesters all out there on the sidewalk with their trans flag umbrellas and their flags waving. And what is the purpose of this? What is the purpose of this? It started out, remember, a long time ago, back in the 90s. We just want to be loved. You know, love is love. I want to love. I want to marry who I love. And love is love. And that’s it. And that’s kind of what, you know, we just want to be accepted. And then it went to, you know, well, we’re going to have a whole month to celebrate this. And then it went to bake this cake or you’re going to get sued. And then it went to, you know, we demand to have access to your children to teach them about this stuff and put this stuff in school libraries. And then it and, you know, they just every step of the way, it’s that bite of the cookie. And they just try to they try to infiltrate every aspect of your life and just force everything down your throat. And I’m sorry, but I enjoyed this a lot more when everyone was just in the closet. And then it was a big deal to come out of the closet. And then it’s like, yeah, okay, whatever. Yeah, I just found out you’re gay. That’s fine, whatever. That’s good. That was good. I was okay with that. We don’t need a whole damn month to celebrate it, do we? Anyway, I want to talk about these ICE protests going on right now. in L.A. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Have you seen it on the news? As rational people will refer to them as violent riots because that’s what they are. And don’t kid yourself. They’re going to be coming here, too. The streets of Denver will be, you know, a riot zone just like it was after George Floyd. This is no different than those riots following the arrest and death of George Floyd, where race And police brutality were pretty much the two driving components there. This time, not only is the racial component there, because liberals can’t do anything without injecting race into the conversation, right? But I’m also noticing that all these protesters, again, are wearing masks. So I remember back in the George Floyd riots, they were all wearing masks and blamed it on COVID, right, at that time, summer of 2020. back when COVID was a big deal, before everybody found out it was a lie. So all the protesters are wearing masks, and I want to know why. And I think we know why, but, you know, they could be trying to protect themselves from the fumes of the fires that they’re starting, or maybe from the tear gas bombs that are being lobbed at them, or do they just not want their identities known? Because I think that’s what it is, obviously. If ICE sees their face, let’s swoop in, let’s arrest and deport people. The L.A. police chief said that he’s seen familiar faces in these protest crowds from other protests. What a surprise. What a shock. There are a bunch of antagonists who like to just drive around from location to location and probably make their living starting riots or taking part in riots. So I want to read to you this. This it’s a. article, not article, it’s a help wanted ad, basically, in the Los Angeles area Craigslist. The headline reads, and I’m going to try to get through this without using swear words, because I don’t want to get cut off here, so I’m going to try to cut those out. The headline says, looking for the toughest bad A’s in the city. That’s what the headline reads, seeking extremely tough, brave men for a new crew I’m building. Compensation, $6,500 to $12,500 per week. Per week. It says we are forming a select team of the toughest dudes in the area. This unit will be activated only when the situation demands it, but you get paid every week no matter what. High pressure, high risk, no room for hesitation. We need individuals who do not break, panic, or fold under stress and are basically all-around kick-A dudes. Physical strength, speed, condition is important, but mental toughness is everything. If you’re not the biggest guy in the room, but you’re the one people follow when things go bad, that’s who we’re looking for. We’re recruiting those who are already hard, bad A’s, and ready for confrontation when necessary. However, we can train you if necessary. So that’s how this article reads. My friend Kelly sent me that, and I found that to be really interesting that what are they training for and who are these people, what’s the deal there? All these unhinged people are rioting allegedly because ICE is conducting raids and deportation of criminals. illegals. And they’re burning police cars, closing major interstate highways, you know what they’re doing, throwing rocks at cops, all while waving the Mexican flag or the Guatemalan flag or wherever. It’s unacceptable. Why we allow this, I have no idea. So you have to ask the question, And I’m not even going to say left or right in this because, again, I think that it’s just two wings of the same evil, tyrannical bird. But you have to ask the question, how can it even look rational to defend these people? They’re defending the indefensible. They have to know that. What they’re basically saying, and according to Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who’s, you know, made a living at riots and organizing riots and protests, and she’ll call them protests, but she’s got experience in this, and they’re not having any of it. If the Trump administration would just leave all these illegal aliens alone, the rioting would stop. And that’s kind of what they’re saying. In other words, just turn your head, ignore the illegal immigration problem, ignore the millions of people who came from Mexico and Central and South America illegally through fake Biden’s wide-open southern border and killed and raped and brought drugs and murdered and committed armed robbery and whatever else you want to slap on there, because Tom Holman keeps telling everybody that that’s who they’re going after first. So if that’s the case… and that’s who they’re going after first, then what is all the ruckus about? Why don’t politicians want these people gone? And that guy, the Maryland man, the Maryland dad that was deported back to Guatemala or Venezuela or wherever he was from, he’s back here now, and, yes, he’s facing charges. And they’ve got video, you know, body cam video of him getting pulled over with, like, eight other people in his vehicle. So these people are not lily white, and they know this, and I don’t understand what is the problem with kicking them out of the country. I just can’t wrap my head around it. So we’re not supposed to talk about it. We’re not supposed to do anything about it. We need to give all of them amnesty no matter what kind of violent crime they’ve committed or how many drugs they’ve brought over or how many women they’ve raped or children they’ve trafficked or whatever. We’re just supposed to turn a blind eye, to use one of those phrases that I talked about earlier. They deserve to be here. They’re humans. And if you don’t feel the same way, then you’re a racist. I wonder if these bleeding heart liberals understand that these violent criminal illegals that ICE is targeting for deportation would not show them one shred of mercy if they were to encounter a guy like that who murdered someone or the gal who trafficked children on behalf of some human trafficking kingpin in Guatemala. If Nancy Pelosi were to have the guy over for dinner, do you think she’d be shown mercy or do you think he’d be eyeballing something in her house to steal? Would Gavin Newsom go have a beer with any of these people? What is the point of their defiance of ICE other than their hatred for Trump? Give me an explanation on what the point is without using the word Trump here. This whole liberal outcry for illegals to be able to stay here no matter what they’ve done is actually so ridiculous that it’s almost laughable. And that said, that’s why I kind of go back to the distraction thing. Because it’s so dumb. Remember, this could be a distraction. Trump wants Gavin Newsom arrested. So I think that’s kind of funny right there. Did you hear him say that when he got off of Marine One? Is that the helicopter, that Marine One? Or is that Air Force Two? I think it’s Marine One. Anyway, so there’s that. And I agree. I think Gavin Newsom has, he’s the one that started all this stuff. Him and people like him in allowing this to happen, allowing these cities to be overrun by illegals. And all the illegals that are there, The criminals, those are the ones that are out rioting. I think I should swoop in, use some kind of a, my husband said to use some kind of a weapon that just adds, you know, a current through the air or something just to render everyone unconscious for like an hour and scoop them all up and take them all to jail and stick them on a bus and send them back to wherever it is they came from. Because this cannot, they shut down the 101 program. In L.A.? Isn’t that like the most used? Luke, you’re a Southern California guy, right? Did you spend a lot of time in L.A. or no?
SPEAKER 04 :
Not super frequently, no. No, not super frequently, no.
SPEAKER 01 :
But you know the 101, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I’m familiar.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay. So, I mean, anybody who’s lived in L.A., I’ve driven the 101, and I’ve never even lived there. Went for a visit out there with a friend and drove her car because I wanted to see what driving in L.A. traffic was like, and boy, did I experience it, a rush hour. But they’ve got it blocked. So I don’t see why more, like, counter-protests are not happening, which, I don’t know, it just all leads me back to it’s fake. It’s fake. So I’m going to play this piece for you real quick. This is from End Wokeness on X. This is the kind of stuff I listen to that always pulls me away from the mainstream narrative. Check this out.
SPEAKER 03 :
These riots in downtown L.A. are about as organic as a Krispy Kreme donut. They’re pulling out all the same tactics as the 2020 Summer of Love protests, and it looks like they’re expanding the black bloc activism to other cities in the coming weeks, so watch out for that. And same script here, news media calling them peaceful protests. even LAPD. Peaceful protests. Does that look peaceful to you? Ah, the looters are out peacefully stealing, throwing rocks at cops. So peaceful. Trump resorted to calling up the National Guard and Pete Hegseth put a few hundred Marines from 29 Palms on alert. I don’t want to see it escalate, but part of me would love to see the Marines spank some Antifa crybabies. And of course, California Governor Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass are out playing victim, blaming Trump and ICE for causing the chaos. Classic psychopathic inversion, gaslighting the masses to the max. But looky here, Karen Bass, L.A. Mayor, actually has a background in organizing protests. She specializes in starting riots. And the Biden administration gave money to some NGOs leading these protests in LA. One being the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. And Antifa is expanding these anti-ice riots to other cities in the coming days, like San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and Austin, Texas. Then this weekend, on Saturday the 14th, There are huge nationwide anti-Trump protests being organized by NGOs. Eisenhower warned us of a military industrial complex, but we also have to be mindful of an NGO industrial complex. Who the heck is funding these guys? Soros, China, cartels, the Rothschilds, all the above, probably. Expect these riot protests to continue and expand through the summer months, really. This is how the New World Order is working to divide and conquer the country. Infiltration over invasion.
SPEAKER 01 :
And there you go. I couldn’t agree more. So that’s going to do it for me today. Thanks so much for tuning in today, you guys, to 58 Minutes. It just goes by so fast. Check out Franktown Firearms. Go to ColoradoCQB.com or COCQB.com and sign up for a class. Get in on the CHP classes while you can before they double in time and cost you $100 more. If you want some questions answered about the new laws, Karen.Murray at FranktownFirearms.com. Until next time, you guys, Mama Glock is out for now. Take care, everyone. God bless.
