Believe Absurdities, Commit Atrocities

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: So, just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan? I have concepts of a plan. That is a damning non-answer. I'm not trying to make it about myself, Your Honor. I'm just trying to show his bias toward the defendant. Just don't make it yourself.

0:00:33 Clip: Something simple as a crack pipe, a used crack pipe. The rules were that you guys weren't going to fact check.

0:00:45 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is a spooktacular episode 1079. I'm your spooky host that over there is real real dead attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing?

0:01:01 Matt: Came from the law that's right we're here to talk about some legal horror stories uh one from very long time ago and one from uh I don't know next month yeah yeah I

0:01:11 Thomas: Current now the only problem is when you talk about legal horror stories there's so many like which ones aren't horror stories like which my brush with the law I would call a horror story Sorry, there's for the course.

0:01:25 Matt: Agree it is by 2024 standards but I think maybe when you hear this one you might might, yeah, this is a true legal horror story in every sense.

0:01:31 Thomas: Fair. Could always get worse. That's true.

0:01:35 Matt: Much worse. Yeah.

0:01:37 Thomas: I love a good spooktacular. It's not often you can find a spooktacular for the legal show, but has a very good idea of how to tie this all together in a way that is relevant and fun and spooky.

0:01:49 Matt: We're talking about fascism, which of course is just as spooky as anything right now. That's right. The real specter.

0:01:51 Thomas: The spookiest of all. Yeah, I put up some fascism decorations. Declarations. They're very scary.

0:02:00 Matt: Will say that for the first time in the history of opening arguments, we are going to provide legal advice. So be prepared. Actual legal advice that you can use in 1692 for time travelers.

0:02:11 Thomas: If and you find yourself in 1692, which could happen.

0:02:15 Matt: Could save your life. So just take note.

0:02:16 Thomas: Wow. Right well I can't wait to get to this it sounds like a lot of fun and we'll have to get to it after our usual break which you can avoid at patreon.com/law where the but not in a good way auto ads you know those are are the bad kind of scary you don't want those you don't want to listen to those at all avoid them at patreon.com/law and get the goodies all where do we want to begin our spooktacular matt the year is

0:02:42 Matt: Well, Thomas, yeah. It is 1692. I want to go back in my backyard about 40 miles north in the area of Salem, although not entirely Salem, as we'll talk about. Now, this is a story that most Americans, I think, know. Most people in the world probably know something about it, I hope. It is the single largest mass wrongful execution in American history.

0:03:00 Matt: Probably, I hope, the singular just mass after trial, but all at once, I don't think this many people were wrongfully convicted in such a short period of time, but I could be wrong.

0:03:00 Thomas: I don't know oh convicted okay so we're not counting like you know how we massacred a bunch of other okay so like a

0:03:11 Matt: I'm talking after due process or something resembling due process, which is what I really want to talk about. Yeah, not exactly. Exactly.

0:03:15 Thomas: Due process what is the process and how much are you due puts new meaning to that old canard

0:03:22 Matt: This was pretty cheap due process. Yeah. This actually, this is a story that growing up I always heard as a history story, but it's really a law story. It's a story about what can really go wrong. It is an absolute perfect storm of legal injustice. And I'll talk about all the different ways that, because I'm not going to talk about the causes of the panic. I'm really not going talk about facts. I think we basically understand that some girls started making some allegations about people practicing witchcraft in the Salem area. This is actually more around Salem Village, which would have been modern day Danvers, Massachusetts, but it started to just pull in the entire Essex County. And in fact, Mary Beth Norton, whose book I want to credit right away, In the Devil's Snare, it's a great book about this whole crisis. She calls it The Essex Country Witchcraft Crisis rather than the Salem Witch Trials, which seems a little too wordy to me, but But it makes sense when you think about it, because it was much bigger than Salem. They weren't really trials, and no one was actually a witch. So it was the crime of witchcraft.

0:04:15 Thomas: I also like that it's a crisis like a little bit of witchcraft that's fine but if it gets to be too much the dams aren't gonna hold so

0:04:20 Matt: So becomes your problem. Yeah, right, right. Not just anybody's problem. So yeah, is, like I said, a perfect storm, because I didn't know some of this before I started looking into the legal history, which is just particularly interesting. But there there was a legal system in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691 because the new governor had just shown up from England bearing the new charter of 1691. Now, the Massachusetts Bay colonies charter was revoked in 1684 because they were too much of a theocracy, believe it or not, and they actually found themselves without any kind of royal charter from 1684 to 1691. And so they're just kind of this weird autonomous zone, basically.

0:04:53 Thomas: Seven years of purge rules or what just I

0:04:56 Matt: Essentially, from what I understand, they were just kind OF trying to remember what they could about the common law and do that. And that's kind of the theme here, unfortunately, because the new governor, yeah, read

0:05:03 Thomas: Just want to imagine all the like we should do gavel gavels of the trials your honor objection okay what ah I think you're not supposed to, what was it? Hearsay. Oh, do you remember the rules of that? No, man, no one has it written down. We don't know. Hard enough when it is written down and

0:05:20 Matt: It somewhere like five years ago. Well, and also the judges weren't lawyers and there weren't any lawyers involved in this process. They were trials.

0:05:26 Thomas: Everything was made up and the points didn't matter.

0:05:28 Matt: Exactly. That's really the thing. It was vibes. It Was Witch Vibes. And so Governor in 1691 having been appointed and he lands right in the middle of this thing because you've got all these accusations flying. And on May 27th, just about 12 or 13 days after he arrived in the colony, he establishes the Court of Oyer and Terminer, which means to hear and to decide. And so this is a special English law where there's no other sort of criminal court sitting where you can create a special commission essentially to look at some felonies. And witchcraft, of course, was a felony. Now, again, the Massachusetts legislature had not managed to pass any laws yet. So there technically aren't any laws in this colony. But they just go back and kind of use English law because it's what they've got. And they are technically at this point a royal colony, not a charter colony. That's a big difference. They'd been a charter company before, which means they would have had a little more autonomy over their legal system and their politics. But they actually now have to deal with appointed people. Revolution was that it was now a royal

0:06:20 Matt: Charter, a royal colony.

0:06:20 Thomas: Matt, you're saying so many things that I don't know anything about in such short order. And I don'T know how much is me. I didn't learn anything in history in school. I just wasn't good at it. Was It a class that required skills that I did did not have as a young adhd kid so like this is we're still british colony times and they would just ship us a new governor we were right in like hey our last one it uh crapped out that last governor can you send us a knew one a new charter and then like in the interim they'd be like we'll We'll just, we'll just we'll hold down the fort here. We'll do, you know.

0:06:40 Matt: And a new charter just to set the rules up. Do what we can. Just kind of pull it together. So what you end up having is the lieutenant governor of the colony, William Stoughton, who's one of the villains of this story, was appointed the chief justice of this new court. And there were seven other judges under him and all of the judges were basically the richest guys in town and none of them were lawyers.

0:07:12 Matt: Uh, so you've got, yeah, pretty much, pretty much except for the lawyer's part.

0:07:12 Thomas: So it's the same as now. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah.

0:07:17 Matt: Uh, John Hawthorne was, he basically owned Salem village, which doesn't seem great. Got George Corman was appointed the sheriff and he was pretty connected and, and the sheriff at the time had the right, well, actually pretty much as the sheriff does now, the sheriff could just take your property and keep it and then use it to pay for jail stuff. So it was super corrupt because he was part of the witch trials, of course, was seizing people's property. So that you can see how that can get out of hand. The first things they do is declare no defense attorneys in this trial. So there's your first problem.

0:07:42 Thomas: What? What trial? Hold on. Where are we? How did we get to a trial? What's happening?

0:07:45 Matt: Well, they're setting up this court of order and terminator and the specific purpose of it is to consider the charges. Now, and

0:07:50 Thomas: So we're at the point people have made some accusations about some various and sundry witchcraft. I see. And they're like, what do we do?

0:07:57 Matt: Book or any other books, lots of great books about how we got there, all very quickly, the whole thing started when you had had two girls in the household of Samuel Parris, who was the new minister, who had been buddying up with a slave woman named Tituba who'd come from the Caribbean. And she may have actually been practicing some kind of occult practices, and they were doing some kind fortune -telling or something. And then this started to spiral out as different accusations were made. And Tituba was pulled in, and she made a bunch of accusations about a bunch other people. Now, again, remember, she has absolutely no stake in this game, right? Because she's a person who was owned by all of of the local white people, so might as well throw out some witch names. Things just kind of get going from there. I can't blame her for that, really. Just a complete hysteria, lots of different theories about how this happened, but lots of charges back and forth. But these charges are based in English law, because that's all they really had to work from. And in 1641, Massachusetts had passed under its body of liberties. They're also sort of referring to this. It's very unclear even what law was controlling at this point. It just kind of make it up as you go, really, but... I will say, though, not that it's much better to he uses 1641 law because I'll read it to you. If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death. That was the law. And no, but you'll be happy to know that they actually do have citations because you want to make sure that you've got your citations clear to the book of Exodus, the book of Deuteronomy, and the book of Deuteronomy. You got to make Sure that you...

0:09:07 Thomas: I I LOVE THE COMBINATION OF THE FANCY FORMAL language with like witches and familiar spirits is so great. Like it just reminds you like how dumb we really are. Like we come up with these trappings that like really seem smart, you know, seem fancy, seem like we're doing, we know what we're going. And then it's like, yeah, familiar spirit. What about an unfamiliar spirit? I don't know. I don't know what that means. I'm not sure.

0:09:21 Matt: Just right there. Oh, yeah. Right. Lawyer, of course, I'm reading this and I'm thinking, well, we need a definition of of a witch. We need a definition of consulteth. We need to know what a spirit is, right? How familiar, right? All the same stuff. But this is a very vague law. But yeah, you just know. You just know somebody's a witch and you have to remember that, of course, this is the society where everybody pretty much believes in witches, that they exist in the same way that we were talking last week about a society in which most people believe that race science is a thing, like leading scientists and people who are out front, when you the immigration laws were written in 1920s. So, you know, this is kind of thing we're talking about today is the way that mass delusions and nonsense can become law and the dangerous consequences. And so everybody agrees that witchcraft is punishable by death and that witches exist. These are things we can all get together on. Under these circumstances, you've got this court of iron terminer, which is supposed to be determining who in the community is a witch based on all of these different accusations. Now, I said I was going to provide some legal advice and straight up, if you find yourself in 1692 in

0:09:42 Thomas: But back then. Okay.

0:10:27 Matt: An American witch trial, and there actually were multiple American witch trials, including a big one in Connecticut as well. Best advice, there's one weird trick you can use to spare yourself and get out of the whole thing.

0:10:28 Thomas: Writing this down. Yeah.

0:10:38 Matt: You'll never guess.

0:10:35 Thomas: Hmm. Just say you're a witch.

0:10:39 Matt: Just say you're a witch, just confess.

0:10:40 Thomas: I do vaguely remember that from something like for some reason it was like the ones who said they were witches were more less fine. I

0:10:47 Matt: Because first of all, the Puritans loved the idea of confession. They believed that people could cleanse their souls and save themselves by confessing to things they'd actually done. But more importantly, at the point at which you've said you're which you have actually broken the spell with Satan. I guess when you say it out loud, they actually believed that that was was the end of it. And so you couldn't be held the same way. And also there was a sort of a prevailing idea that if you are a witch, that only God can hold you accountable and that the courts couldn't. Very convenient.

0:11:11 Matt: Yes. Beth Norton also points out that you wouldn't necessarily know this from the historical record, but the written record, that a lot of these were sort of unsworn statements because they didn't actually bring the people in, the confessors, the people who would that the other people were witches. The problem, though, if we're talking about this perfect storm where you don't have defense attorneys, you've got judges who are just coming out of nowhere, just the richest guys in town who aren't lawyers. You've got a court that's thrown together with no law really governing anything. Obviously, these are all problems. But this whole thing actually could have been avoided if the chief judge, William Stoughton, had not decided to use spectral evidence. Things really went off the rails, Because under English common law, to accuse somebody of a felony, you had to have two eyewitnesses. But spectral evidence is the belief that everybody has a specter, like a spirit that they can send out, and especially witches, they can sent out to tickle you and poke you and knock people over. And for some reason, the witches are never flying around to do anything fun. They were just tweaking people and really understand like what the purpose.

0:11:43 Thomas: Spectral evidence tweaking their back. Oh, man. I'm really my neck is maybe I'm surrounded by specters. I mean, no, but

0:12:13 Matt: Guy got a nosebleed and blamed it on a witch. I mean, literally, it was that kind of stuff. You could provide spectral evidence that whoever had come to you in the night and had shown you that they'd signed the devil's book or that they had started tormenting you in one way or another. And so this became the fuel for the fire. This became the thing. Now, at the end of it, everybody involved was convinced that there was no single conviction that was only based on spectral evidence, but Mary Beth Norton doesn't think that's true. She thinks that's a cover. And that just can't be true because of the amount of spectral evidence it was provided, it. Even if it wasn't the determining thing, it was very, very strong evidence in people's minds.

0:12:44 Thomas: They can't have this this spook specter or ghost come come and testify. So what is Spectra? It's somebody saying like, oh, my shoulder's real sore today. And that is probably a ghost. That's what it is.

0:12:56 Matt: It's the person who's being tormented, not to be confused with the person who's confessed they're a witch, but somebody who's a victim. And it was really a high status thing to be a victim of a witch because it meant you were one of God's elect. You were one of the good guys because Satan would only pick on somebody if they were really chosen by God.

0:13:10 Thomas: That's a bad system.

0:13:11 Matt: So another part of the perfect storm. Yep.

0:13:11 Thomas: So now everybody, yeah. Oh, geez.

0:13:15 Matt: Bad news. And so you get, I

0:13:16 Thomas: How did they ever get out of it? How did they not just witch kill everybody? Like all, pretty close?

0:13:20 Matt: Was long cycle. Yeah, it was like a year of this. It just kept going and going. 25 innocent people died, and some of those were awaiting trial. A four-year-old was held for eight months and had to watch her mother be executed and her sister die in prison.

0:13:23 Thomas: My god that's horrible that's

0:13:34 Matt: Just horrible stuff. This is very real wrongful convictions. And it's kind of a fun Halloween theme, but this is real stuff. It's 332 years ago, but it's real stuff, and what we have here is something that, again, this is something that's familiar from history, but looking at it purely as a legal thing, it shows you so much about why our constitutional rights are the way they are. Because you also could be forced to testify against yourself. That was a pretty basic thing. And you may know the story of Giles Corey, who refused to enter a plea. He wouldn't say he was not guilty and he wouldn't subject himself to trial. And under English common law, the only way to solve that was to just press somebody to death with rocks until they said something. So that's what they did. They just put a board on his back and they just started piling rocks on for two days. It was an 80-year-old man that they they tortured to death, and his last words were more weight, which is pretty cool.

0:13:33 Thomas: Horrible it's is pretty badass I think you should just say you're a witch personally but like I guess if you're gonna not do that for some reason then maybe that's the next best way to go I don't know well

0:14:21 Matt: Yeah, that would have helped. Norton suggests that he actually might not have because his inheritance was on the line, his ability to pass on his inheritance for the conviction, so better to die without it. But also just stubborn.

0:14:34 Thomas: That's terrible well yeah and I guess I mean a lot of this is like if you actually believe in some of this stuff like you're worried about hell or you're worry about all that crap I

0:14:44 Matt: You don't want to go down that way.

0:14:45 Thomas: Feel like maybe we should just only believe in things that are real man that's a I mean I'm a stickler you people think i'ma stickler but maybe just only believing in real things to the best the that we can rather than a bunch of fake nonsense is a better way to live yeah

0:14:56 Matt: That's the radical idea I'm bringing into this episode, actually.

0:14:58 Thomas: But I'm including like astrology and like chiropractic let's not believe in that anymore everybody let's just all the things because everybody has their own sacred thing where they're like well okay but But that's real.

0:15:10 Matt: That, right? Because that's kind of the equivalent of this, right, of putting witchcraft into it's a felony. It's an actual felony punishable by death in Massachusetts. And we put astrology into law such that you could use it as a sentencing enhancement if somebody is a Scorpio because they're more passionate or whatever, what we're talking about here, except everyone believes it. Whole thing goes on. All these people are killed. And finally, it starts to come to an end when the governor's wife is accused and is like, oh, hold on. No, no, no. We're good.

0:15:36 Thomas: They should have thought of that earlier. Somebody should have just accused somebody important. Why didn't they think of it? You should have accused an important rich white person early on. And then this thing is all done. Oh,

0:15:47 Matt: That actually, a number of the people, I'm surprised when I went back to review this, a member of the victims were actually wealthier than I thought. Because the standard narrative about this is that it's kind of older women. Right.

0:15:53 Thomas: So it just has to be connected enough, maybe. Yeah,

0:15:55 Matt: But there were all these little petty disputes that people got caught up and that they used to settle. And they already loved taking each other to court. These were bitter litigious people that had nothing else to do. It's just unfortunate that it manifested this way. And also during this testimony, there was this mass hysteria element where somebody would start talking about the way the specter had tormented them and they would start writhing and going into fits. And there was just like this whole mass delusion that was going on. Other thing that I didn't realize about the Salem Witch Trials until I was really looking into it again was how quickly they realized it was a mistake. The time when Phipps suspended the trials and he actually, he suspended executions. He said no new trials. He wrote to the queen and he's like, so we've been having this whole thing back in Massachusetts. Thought you should know. What do you want us to do?

0:16:37 Thomas: Hey, I think maybe we might have messed something up over here.

0:16:41 Matt: First day on the job, set up this court. Yeah. So while he's waiting on an answer from the queen, he writes to the thing they had to legal scholars, which were clergy in New York, experts on this kind of law. And he asked them, hey, by the way, do you think maybe the devil could cause...

0:16:59 Thomas: Hey, asking for a friend.

0:17:01 Matt: Right, exactly. Just thinking this through here, just talking out loud, but do you maybe the Devil could cause apparitions of innocent people in order to have them condemned? And the clergy wrote back and they're like, yeah, you shouldn't use spectral evidence because that's the kind of thing that's going to end up happening is the Devil's going tempt people by showing them people who are actually innocent and cause chaos.

0:17:19 Thomas: Yeah. That's what I thought. I just was I was just. Yeah, no, no.

0:17:22 Matt: Wouldn't have done that.

0:17:23 Thomas: What? No reason. No, just I was wondering, like, I this idiot I know did that. And I was like, yeah, man, don't do that. OK, thank you. Bye. And

0:17:32 Matt: Much. It's just amazing that they didn't have legal scholars to consult. He has to consult with clergy. That's the state of the Puritans in 1692.

0:17:37 Thomas: The legal advice is again the the groundbreaking or at least life -saving legal advice is don't use spectral evidence so like don't let people just make stuff up like I think I could I I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I could have figured that out in 16 whatever I'm just saying I

0:17:50 Matt: Maybe go with... I don't know. It is easy to say now, but who knows what you would have believed in 1682? Who knows? We'd all like to think that we're as progressive as we are. Actually, after this, there was a very progressive reform. I I went and found the law against witchcraft that was passed after Salem, in which they updated the law that I read you that was based directly in the Bible. And they wrote something that looks a lot more like a current Massachusetts statute, and very progressive of them, if any person or persons shall use, practice, or exercise any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked spirit, or shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed, or reward any evil and wicked spirit to or for any intent or purpose, or take up any dead man, woman, or child out of his or her grave, et cetera, et cetera. So there's stuff against necromancy and

0:17:56 Thomas: Know it's true nah yeah wow sure yeah

0:18:32 Matt: Using charms. But it's very specific, which is what I want as a lawyer. If you're going to have a law about witchcraft, you got to define this stuff. It's very important.

0:18:39 Thomas: It it as progressive as in like you know we're gonna there's gonna be a period of uh you know where there wasn't any of that okay a

0:18:48 Matt: They did abolish cash bail for witches, but still executed them. That was still the penalty. I want to talk, I think it's actually going to be Friday's footnote about some more of the post -conviction because there's a very interesting, very recent development in Salem witchcraft history.

0:18:51 Thomas: Recent

0:19:06 Matt: Recent development, because Massachusetts just takes a while in some of this stuff. Yeah. But overall, though, it only took them about four or five years to realize that this was a disaster and everybody involved should feel ashamed of themselves. Only one of the judges ever apologized.

0:19:05 Thomas: Development huh that's always cool and and that's because mail took like two years to be delivered so that's really just that one guy's letter back to from new york hey

0:19:22 Matt: And I'll talk a little more about another time about what actually happened afterwards. It's very interesting. That's just a footnote of the end of the sort of the wrap up in the aftermath. But the court itself was dissolved by Governor Phipps on the 29th of October, 1692. So we're coming up on that anniversary. Was the end of that weird legal thing. But again, all of this could have been stopped if they had not admitted spectral evidence, which was a pretty controversial thing and had only been done once in English law before, about 30 years before in a witch trial. And of course, if they hadn't allowed defense attorneys. Actually, I was thinking it'd be a pretty good comedy sketch of a defense attorney at the Salem witch trials because what could you you even do?

0:19:30 Thomas: Can't wait. Yeah, what, I mean, yeah, it's such an interesting combination of like, there do seem to be rules, but you know, it reminds me of like LARPing or something, or maybe that's an insult to LARping, apologies. But like, I, when I see those people the LARPing. I'm like, they definitely have a system of rules, but I don't really understand it. And it seems kind of silly to me, but they're having a good time executing people. No, I'm combining things.

0:20:08 Matt: It was. Yeah, probably. Yeah. It is improvised. Right.

0:20:21 Thomas: But it's like, you would have to come up with like a in -universe based reason to get someone out of that. Like, you can't just say like, hey guys, in defense, this is dumb. Then there's like burn him or her. But if you come up like, well, I like the line of, you know, know, I'm a witch, but only God can punish me is the thing. Can't I? So, yep.

0:20:42 Matt: So see you.

0:20:44 Thomas: I'm going to wait. I'll talk to him. And, you know, he's, oh, he is going to punish me so hard. I am actually scared about it. I don't like, you now, I am not looking forward to it. But he said, like, just, he will do it. Yeah.

0:20:53 Matt: All set. Yeah we're good.

0:20:54 Thomas: He said, we are good. We are good to stand down.

0:20:58 Matt: Also the interrogations, I should mention, there's a lot of police brutality involved here too, because they did the famous tests, which we don't have to get into. But could ask questions like, what evil spirit have you familiarity with, just as an opening line, just like exactly which demons.

0:21:10 Thomas: Yeah, like does your mom know you are a witch or whatever?

0:21:12 Matt: Right.

0:21:13 Thomas: Like those kind of things. Yeah?

0:21:14 Matt: Yeah, exactly. So just good reminder about why we have a constitution and why we have the rights that we have. True legal horror story, because I don't think there could be a worse combination of circumstances than these people who were already in this mass hysteria and the court getting caught up in it too and still applying. I mean, again, there was a grand jury and that would take it on to a full jury. They did all the stuff you'd expect, except defense attorneys. They had cross -examination, they had judges making decisions, but in the end, they had to set up an actual court that couldn't admit spectral evidence to finish everything up because they realized how bad it was.

0:21:43 Thomas: Wait. How did they do that? Do you mean? To finish it up?

0:21:45 Matt: Right, to review the remaining cases because he suspended the rest of the trials.

0:21:50 Thomas: Oh! After they had already done all the executing. Okay, okay. I thought you meant, yeah, yeah. Gotcha.

0:21:53 Matt: All the bad stuff. So that is our legal horror story for today, but I do want to talk about how all this ties into our conversation about fascism and about what's coming up on the ballot. There's one particular issue on the ballot that I think is pretty related to this.

0:22:05 Thomas: So I guess we'll take a break and get to that. But I guess to just finalize it, we can almost combine the 1692 advice with the famous Ghostbusters quote, where if someone asks you if you're a witch, you say yes, you know, and just that's done. You're done. Good legal advice. All This episode is brought to you by Quince. Well, it's finally, maybe, different season than summer here in California. And It's I love it because fall is just the consensus best season. Fall offers the chance to Finally Ditch the Shorts & Crocs and to pants and crooks. Socks and maybe a cozy cashmere sweater I offers affordable, high -quality essentials for any wardrobe. That includes seasonal must -haves like Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $60 and comfortable pants for any occasion. Only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible responsible manufacturing practices, along with premium fabrics and finishes. They partner with them directly, cutting out the cost of the middleman and passing the savings on to you. Means Quince items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands, so look without breaking the bank. Live in Quince, it's good quality and has not worn down despite me wearing it entirely way too much so upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince go to quince.com/OA for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns that's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash OA to get free shipping and 365 days 365-day returns quince dot com slash OA

0:22:20 Matt: That's it. Got it.

0:23:43 Thomas: Matt. So in addition to being a very fun, spooktacular, although obviously horrifying story from 300 whatever years ago, how does that tie into today? Surely we're a lot smarter now, right? I mean, yeah, that would be silly.

0:23:55 Matt: Well, we wouldn't pass laws based on mass delusions now, obviously. That just wouldn't happen. Want to talk about a couple of places where we have and where we are. Just a reminder, of course, because since we are, this is loosely part of the fascism series more or less. I just want to remind everybody that the Third Reich was established on a conspiracy theory, the burning of the Reichstag. I'm sure that's basic German history, I hope everyone knows, but because it was blamed on the communists and it was like, we still don't really know exactly how the Reichstag burned in 33, but the Nazis, unfortunately, were able to use the Weimar constitution against itself because article 48 had what was called, unfortunately a dictator clause. I don't know why they had that in there, but real oversight.

0:24:33 Thomas: Don't put that one in there. Like, yeah

0:24:35 Matt: Just might need a dictators. I'm just leaving it in the toolbox. If public security and order are seriously disturbed or endangered within the German Reich, the president of the Reich may take measures necessary for their restoration, et cetera. So that was the point at which famously Hitler was able to suspend all civil liberties. And three weeks later, he passed the Enabling Act, which set up a completely new system of government, basically. So, that was all based on a conspiracy theory about communists who were in wait, trying to take over. And even as the Reichstag was was burning, Hitler said, these In their mouseholes, out of which they now want to come, of course, they hear nothing of the cheering of the masses. He's saying nobody supports these subhuman vermin. Does that sound familiar? Sounds a little familiar.

0:25:13 Thomas: And it and it really does hit that thing that I find so um funny which is the we're under attack we're massive victim underdogs but also no one supports these people that everyone hates and all you know it's like constant both victim self -victimization and but that doesn't represent you know you're also the people you're all so everybody yeah

0:25:27 Matt: And they're also just little mice. It's fine. Yeah, they're in mouseholes. Me, this is the classic example, obviously, of how fascism works as a mass delusion, but fascism depends on conspiracy theories and mass delusions. And of course, we're surrounded by that right now. And this is extra concerning to me as somebody who follows these things. If you look as recently as just within this century in Poland, there was a plane crash, very unfortunate, tragic event that killed a lot of the top people in the government, including the president and many members of his cabinet. And that was a very and this became a foundational conspiracy theory for the far right in Poland that allowed them to take power. And you basically, as a screening test, you had to say how you stood on this plane crash thing, even though they had the black box. And they know that what happened is the president was pushing to land in an unsafe way, trying to get to a campaign event. And it's just pretty standard plane crash. But they believed that I think it was the Russians that took it down or something. But you had to believe that there's like this deep state Russian conspiracy in order to continue. And now Poland is badly divided and doing, you know, not great. It's not much of a democracy at the moment. That's all it takes is basing your government on a conspiracy theory. And that's why those of us who follow these things are so concerned about the way that January 6th is being treated and the way this next issue I want to talk about is being treated, which is non -citizen voting.

0:25:36 Thomas: I'm not sure why we're so afraid of them then seems like that's not a thing matt that's our weird that you would say a thing that's like a logical contradiction yes

0:26:43 Matt: Are you sure, though? We might want to ask Mike Johnson. Let's see what he thinks.

0:26:49 Thomas: I'm sure no there's no I don't need to ask that doesn't exist matt that's not a thing that can we don't that doesn't they can't they cannot vote

0:26:56 Matt: Well, Mike Johnson's here to explain it to you if you want to check this clip from May.

0:26:58 Thomas: All right well I'll check I'm assuming this is just a clip of mike johnson saying well they can't vote that's silly they don't they aren't voting because they can'T let's see what

0:27:07 Clip: The only thing that matters is that it's unanswerable. That is the problem. States are not allowed right now to prove if somebody claims on that simple form that they're a citizen they can vote. They're not allowed to prove whether it's true or not. We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it's not something that is easily provable. We don't have that number. This legislation will allow us to do exactly that. It will prevent that from happening. And if someone tries to do it, it will now be unlawful and the states will have a mechanism to...

0:27:11 Thomas: What

0:27:27 Matt: So, perfect. That is Mike Johnson talking, of course, about the SAVE Act, which we've discussed discussed before, which would have required proof of citizenship to vote. And this is something they were willing to shut the government down over, at least the far right in Congress. So just a reminder how important this is to them right now. I don't want to talk about why that is, but just the language there of like, well, we know intuitively this is happening.

0:27:54 Matt: We don't have your numbers, but you want numbers?

0:27:54 Thomas: Hey if anyone says we know intuitively a thing but we can't actually prove it then I think you should again they call me a stickler be a little skeptical of that yeah

0:28:04 Matt: Not be facts. You may not be hearing facts. It's very possible. So that is the kind of delusion, because you remember, of course, Donald Trump saying that millions of people voted illegally, and that's one of the reasons he lost Hillary Clinton. Excuse me I'm sorry why did I just say that wow I

0:28:17 Thomas: Well the he did say he lost the popular vote he said that's why he lost yeah

0:28:19 Matt: I'm I'm right yeah there we go I'm sorry that was weird though okay yes but he said yeah yeah took me a minute

0:28:23 Thomas: I mean I mean you accidentally tried to create an alternate universe that I very much much wish we lived in. But he did. No, that was his excuse for losing the popular vote by a whole lot because California was obviously a huge source of that popular vote discrepancy.

0:28:31 Matt: That's right he did that's fine that's fair and it's especially dangerous because of the great replacement conspiracy theory which I didn't get into in uh the last episode when we talked about fascism but something I really wanted to bring up of course the idea that Which Elon Musk is fully behind right now, and the far right is completely behind. At this point, the mainstream right. I mean, you're hearing great replacement type stuff being talked about pretty openly by major Republican leaders. And it's the idea that there are unnamed forces, often if you ask the right people, it's Jews that are doing it, migrants in so they can vote and turn everything blue. And this is a conspiracy theory that has a talking point if you just see it online all the time.

0:29:09 Matt: It's just something that people are just saying.

0:29:10 Thomas: I There's an easy way that you can tell the difference between the far right and the normal right. The arguments and points and agenda is exactly the same, but the far-right uses the phrase great replacement and everybody else on the right doesn't use that all it doesn't always use that exact passphrase, that's the only difference though it is kind of tough

0:29:31 Matt: They'll talk about election integrity and voter fraud, much more in general.

0:29:33 Thomas: And everything they say is based around the ideology still but they don't use the bad scary words Matt so they're normal mainstream right yeah

0:29:41 Matt: Just to remind everybody, the Great Replacement Theory was the direct cause of that horrific Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, the the synagogue that was shot, mass shooting there, because this man had just seen information about a Jewish nonprofit that was helping to bring migrants. And the most extreme version of this is the Charlottesville, Jews will not replace us. That's literally what they meant, is that Jews are not going to bring in people to replace us, And so this might seem kind of innocuous, these measures that we're going to talk about, but there is a very good reason that the right is pushing this and that they want to get this in people's heads that there is massive problem with undocumented voting, even though there really is no such problem as we talked about last time, maybe a couple dozen cases in the last several decades, potentially, of undocumented people voting, often by accident for reasons we might talk about. Again, this is something that is fueling eight different ballot questions this There are eight different ballot questions on the ballot this year in which different states are going to have you come out and vote about whether or not non -citizens should get to vote in your state.

0:30:36 Thomas: That's silly because all the non-citizens can just vote those down so why would why did they if they're right about that then I don't know how they're going to get out of that conundrum huh

0:30:40 Matt: True. Didn't think of that, did you? That's true, I note that these are all put on the ballots by legislatures. None of these, as you checked, were actually citizen ballot measures. I think that's important. So it does suggest to me a sort of a coordinated right -wing effort, that ALEC kind of thing to get everything coordinated so you can have this on the ballot in a way that brings people out. In the same way that we have eight different questions relating to reproductive rights, then that brings out left. But the problem is, of course, that there actually are real threats to people with uteruses and their health care, and there are no real threats on the other side on this issue. But it does bring people out, so I think that's part of it. It also reinforces all these talking points. But of course, it is actually already a federal crime for non -citizens to vote. You may not be surprised to learn.

0:31:21 Thomas: How How would they do it? I don't understand. Look, I think, what, are all states kind of different on this? We vote by mail in California, and it's like a lot of people do. So if I were a non -citizen, how would I get that? How would that work? Or if I didn't vote by email, I go into the place and say, hi, I would like to vote. Well, what's your name? And then you make it up or something. How would you do this?

0:31:48 Matt: I actually, this is a question I genuinely wanted to ask, like what the actual harm is, what the threat is. So I went and I listened just for you and just for our listeners. I listened to The Megyn Kelly Show. You a quick link here to the Megyn Kelly Show and we can listen to them actually explain this. Gene Hamilton, one of the top people, he's working in American First Legal, Stephen Miller's outfit and he's going to explain to you I guess about why this is a problem it doesn't make any sense to me uh

0:32:11 Clip: Their number percent of the time going to go register to vote at the dmv or through the mail and that they're then going to show up at the ballot box and themselves cast a vote. The issue here of course is that their name registered to vote and when you have states all across the country using mail -in ballots right this is all about ballot harvesting and getting as many names on as many ballots as you possibly can turned in get the votes counted of course before you can do anything and then at the end of the day say look there's more ballots that were cast for explain that what do you mean so democratic operatives engaging in fraud would figure out who's an illegal and who's not and try to send in a ballot for this guy that he doesn't even know he's sending in look that's certainly something that can happen and it's certainly something that can happen especially in transient communities so

0:32:45 Thomas: Are you talking about oh

0:32:47 Matt: It comes. This is it. This is the closest thing I could find to an explanation is Megyn Kelly asking, oh, so Democrats could fraudulently use these names to vote. And he's like, oh yeah, that could happen. But otherwise he doesn't explain.

0:33:12 Thomas: I I mean I could be wrong I don't like megan kelly but I feel like she meant that kind of sarcastically and he's like yep yeah

0:33:18 Matt: Yeah. And she might've, I don't know, but either way, she's gotten further right recently, but yeah.

0:33:26 Thomas: She had no she sucks But her tone kind of seemed like she even she was finding that hard to believe. But I could be wrong.

0:33:32 Matt: This is one of the leading minds of I'm sorry. I just lost it.

0:33:36 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, boy. All right, Matt. Take seven. You're going to have to try real hard to say that. We're going be here all day if you can't get a clean take of you saying one of the leading minds.

0:33:40 Matt: One of the leading legal philosophers. Okay, hold on. Legal scholars?

0:33:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:49 Matt: No, I don't know. But Gene Hamilton is a big deal on this side. He's like an actual lawyer who does this stuff. He was in policy in the Trump administration. He is not just somebody out of nowhere. Her. And so he's the closest thing I could find to something quasi -respectable person trying to explain why this matters. And he just kept saying, we have to clean up the voting rolls. And then she's trying to get him to say, why does it matter? What are they going to do with this information? And imagine trying to sort through and figure out which Jose Martinez is a citizen and which one isn't when you're looking at a neighborhood like mine in East Boston. And so, he's

0:34:16 Thomas: Well, wait, none of them would be on the voting rolls if they're not citizens, right? How did that?

0:34:20 Matt: Making the point that sometimes people can accidentally, if you like the motor voter thing, if you check a box and say, I also want to register to vote. I don't think this happens very often because nowadays, most states, you have to prove citizenship or you have to show that. So there's different options, at least here in Massachusetts, for citizens and non -citizens. And I think it's that way for most places now that you'd have to pretty much lie about your citizenship to do that. And that's a huge problem. If you lie about your citizenship, just so everybody's clear, you cannot become a citizen. That is just a hard bar. It's also a crime to vote, as I was saying. So I just wanted to play that because this is like the delusion of the fantasy because they don't even have a good fantasy. It doesn't even make sense about why this is necessary. And this is the basis for these ballot questions and for why they want to make it harder for everybody to vote and why they want to purge the voting rolls, which is really the ultimate goal here. But just to make this very clear, U.S.C. 611 makes it unlawful for any alien to vote in any federal election. Now, I just, again, to be completely fair to the other side, which I really try to do, there is a loophole. And I I haven't even really seen somebody like Gene Hamilton explain

0:35:13 Matt: This. I just had to find it.

0:35:13 Thomas: It's it's if you're gonna vote for Democrats is the loophole yeah then it's fine yeah

0:35:17 Matt: Pretty much. There is actually exemptions in the law for if the election is held for partly some other purpose, in which aliens are authorized to vote for such or such other purpose under a state constitution or statute or local ordinance. So I haven't really even seen that spelled out, but that is one of the justifications for these things is that they don't want the state to be able to pass a law to allow undocumented or not just undocumented, but people with TPS, people with asylum, people with green cards to vote. And there are a few places, including San Francisco, where they can vote for things like school board or water board or utility boards, right? Which makes sense. If you live in a place, you should get to say, you know, who's running your schools for your kids.

0:35:49 Thomas: I yeah that is one thing that's maybe worth saying for one second that like there's so much about the illegals they're voting the illegals are voting the illegal is voting and I just have to point out that the worst case scenario of that like if that were true is that people would be voicing what they want for the government in the place that they live like that's the worst case but it's those people so yeah

0:36:14 Matt: Especially, right, the wrong people. And, you Know, here in East Boston, where I live, we have a majority Latino population, and it's been a lot of difficulty trying to activate that vote because, excuse me, we have a majority Latino population, and most of the population can't vote, not necessarily because they're undocumented, because a lot of people have TPS, a lot of people with green cards, or in other statuses. And so we have never had a Latino city councilor in our majority Latino neighborhood. Now, I love our local officials, I know them all, but we haven't had a Latino represent this neighborhood, and I think that goes a long way. If we could have everybody in the neighborhood vote for city council, I think that would make a lot sense. I know that's a radical view, that people should be able to vote for who represents them, but that's how I feel about it. But as it is, all of these states want to be sure that that never happens, that you never have the states authorize any kind of local election. But more than anything, they just want to get it in people's heads that this is already a problem, that You can come out and stop with your vote. Doing this, like I said, on eight different ballots. I want to look at a couple of them. Um, Wisconsin is changing one word of its constitution. I believe, uh, Iowa is also doing that. All they have to do is change the language from every U.S. citizen who is 18 has the right to vote to only a U.S. citizen who was 18 has the right to vote. Just one word, very easy to do. A little trickier because they are throwing in a couple of things that I support, including officially lowering the state voting age from 18 to 21, which is kind of a strange thought because yeah,

0:36:51 Thomas: Lowering

0:37:27 Matt: It's already 18 by constitution, federal constitution. But the state, oh, sorry.

0:37:29 Thomas: You just said lowering it from 18 to 21 I

0:37:34 Matt: Man, I'm so bad at numbers. I'm going to start that again. I do actually know that 21 is more.

0:37:38 Thomas: Mean there's bad numbers and then there's not knowing which is higher of a number I think that's a little bit yeah really

0:37:43 Matt: It's dyscalculia. Thomas, dyscalculia is a hell of a drug. So, it officially lowers the state voting age from 21 to 18, which is of course where it is at the federal level already, but the State has had it set higher. From what I understand, they've already been allowing 18 18 -year -olds, that's the law. And can't

0:37:53 Thomas: Like you could only vote in state stuff if you were 21 there but you could vote Do you have to get, like, a split different ballot?

0:38:02 Matt: Vote for city council? Yeah, I don't know. Apparently, they've just been doing it anyway, but I guess officially on paper, this is my understanding, is that they want to change that. They also, something else I do support, allowing 17-year-olds who'll be 18 by the time of the election to vote in primaries. That's an easy little fix because you should get a chance to vote at the end of the election if you're going to be 18 by that time. That is the inexorable march of time. We'll ensure that that does happen, almost certainly. Is also doing the same kind of thing where they're selling it as a proactive thing, North Dakota, and quite a few others. So they're all around the same theme of making sure that we will not have elections at any time in which non -citizens can vote, dealing with something that's not really a problem at all. Want to talk about a couple of other places where we've passed ballot questions that aren't really problems. And my favorite, of course, is Sharia law, which you might remember there was a big craze from 10, 15 years ago when states were, there was just a raft of states putting forward anti-Sharia amendments. And only two of them actually passed on the ballot. And was the first to pass in 2010. And again, just to remind everybody, Sharia law is not being instituted anywhere in the United States, even in 2024. There is nowhere where Muslim

0:39:03 Matt: Sharia laws...

0:39:02 Thomas: Because it's already done.

0:39:04 Matt: That's right. Secretly, yes. A panic that was going on a while back where they thought that somehow, I guess Muslim judges were just going to start doing Sharia Law or something. I don't know.

0:39:15 Thomas: Back in the day, they used to have to travel further to get their scapegoat, then they're like, wait a minute, we have scapegoats closer to us. Let's just do that. It used to be Muslims. I mean, I was at 9-11, obviously. And that was a 10, good, 15 years of nonstop demonization of that particular group. And then, I some sense, that's gotten better. But I think it's just because they've turned their focus to a different group, mainly, or a couple different groups.

0:39:24 Matt: Back home. Yeah. No, thing about the Oklahoma one is it was actually promoted completely and almost entirely by Representative Rex Duncan, whose name I never would have known if we hadn't just done the episode on Richard Glossip. Rex Duncan was one of the independent investigators who came up with that report saying that Glossip didn't get a fair trial. So just have to acknowledge that for a moment that the guy who thought that Oklahoma needed an anti-Sharia amendment to his constitution doesn't think that Richard Glossip got a fair trial.

0:40:03 Thomas: Hey, maybe don't execute that guy.

0:40:05 Matt: Yeah, like Sharia law or otherwise, not a fair trial. Duncan in public said that this will constitute a preemptive strike against Sharia Law coming to Oklahoma. He said,

0:40:16 Thomas: Anything else you want to preempt? Also, the Cylons. Let's pass something saying they can't do their thing.

0:40:23 Matt: Or vote.

0:40:24 Thomas: Preemptive.

0:40:24 Matt: I mean, we can't have them voting. That'd be terrible.

0:40:26 Thomas: Yeah, because then they'll just pass everything they want. Yeah.

0:40:28 Matt: Can just copy each other. Yeah. Oklahoma is still able to defend itself against this sort of hideous invasion, Asian, we should do so. Just incredible to think that there's like a plot to take over Oklahoma's legal system. Good news out of Oklahoma, it was actually passed by voters, but it was immediately enjoined by a federal court because someone named Munir Awad went out for an injunction saying that his will, this is very interesting, was drafted under Sharia law principles. And he was concerned that a probate court wouldn't actually be able to properly review it. Again, he wasn't saying that Sharia Law should be applied. He was just saying that that was sort of how he'd construct it as well. And federal judge agreed, Judge, excuse me, Vicki Miles-Lagrange agreed that it was First Amendment issue because it restricted the practice of religion and it was clearly an establishment clause problem because it was singling out the law around one religion. It was officially about foreign law, but everybody knew this was a Sharia thing. That's the way they were talking about it. So good news that that is not actually the law in Oklahoma.

0:40:52 Thomas: Interesting. Might be worth asking the question to you, Matt, if people are out there thinking, okay, but then what's the harm? If there's people who are like, hey, I'm afraid of Bigfoot, let's pass a no Bigfoot law, then there might be some number of listeners like, okay. Well, there is no Bigfoots. So then what is the harm of the no BigFoot law? That doesn't matter.

0:41:42 Matt: Waste of government resources for one thing to get something in the ballot, but also more to the point, Muslims exist. Bigfoot does not. I mean, at the same time, undocumented people exist, right? And these are laws that are, well,

0:41:51 Thomas: But I guess I guess if the if the thing was, no, they're passing the law against Sharia law, like obviously we no one wants Sharia Law to be law. That's not a you Muslims existing, you So what's the problem? Them.

0:42:02 Matt: That's my point is that you're talking about real groups that could actually be affected culturally and socially and politically by promoting these ideas that, I mean, even the idea that you need something like this implies that there's some sort of Muslim law takeover, that it's a real threat to the state and it allows people to come out in public and say things like that. And that was one of the points that Awan was making and that the opposition to these bills has been making. And I think that's fair in the same way that I'm saying that you are promoting great great replacement theories by having these very burdensome citizenship -only things, which will ultimately result in no doubt in American citizens being removed from voter rolls and no doubt make it much harder for people to vote when these things are passed.

0:42:37 Thomas: Absolutely. I was kind of teeing you up because I do think that is something people wonder. And I think we've seen time and time again that you can't play into it any percentage because it doesn't end. There's no, because once you know that the goal, I think this is very important about fascism. The goal is not some practical concern that they want to solve.

0:42:56 Thomas: The goal isto be fascist. The golisto have something to scare everyone with all the time. So like all the stuff, the crap we did around critical race theory, we you had the same bit of kind of back and forth. Well, shouldn't is is it any harm to look into whether. No, it's not any harm. To like look into something, but like then you've just moved the dial that much more to where you've entertained their theory and certain number of people see neutral language on it. And then that tells them it might be true, you know, rather than just should what be done is just, no, we don't need to do this. This is false. This is fake. This is not a real thing. There's not a real concern, whatever it's, it's we can't buy into it. Any percent that compromising with fascism doesn't do anything other than enable fascism.

0:43:34 Matt: That's right. Exactly. Exactly what I wanted to say. And Gene Hamilton knows full well, and you can tell from the way he's talking about it, that there's not a real problem with undocumented people voting. He knows that. So you have to ask, why is he doing it? Why are they coming out and supporting these delusions? And they have lots of good reasons. And there's no reason at all for us to meet them on this. Now, voter integrity is important, but this particular approach to purging voter rolls is a tremendous waste of state resources and is done really only for this purpose, to get these things out there. Mention very quickly, as long as we're going through this, Alabama did also pass by ballot question a law that remains in place, the Foreign Law In -Court Amendment, which made it very clear that different different from the law of the state of Alabama is foreign law. That's actually, that's how the sentence starts. They don't allow, and I thought this was a strange wording here, a separate body of law, legal code, or system adopted or used anywhere by any people, group, or culture different from the Constitution and laws of the United States or state of Alabama. And this, again, was very directly supposed to be about Sharia law, but it also accidentally invalidated contracts where the choice of law clause favored other countries, Because you can imagine making an agreement with BMW, which does business in Alabama, where maybe some things might be litigated.

0:44:42 Thomas: That's funny.

0:44:44 Matt: And it suggests that it might be against the public policy in most cases to enforce that. They do have a clause about business and how they care about that. But these things always have unintended consequences when you're trying to pass something that weird. Speaking of weird, just a couple of other things. And this is more in the Bigfoot direction, but I do think it's worth mentioning because, again, this is just a waste of time and resources. In 2010, there was a Denver -only ballot question to create an extraterrestrial affairs commission for the city of Denver. Was rejected by an 80 % majority, fortunately. That would have created an extraterrestrials affairs commission to help ensure the health, safety, and cultural awareness of Denver residents in relation to potential encounters or interactions with extraterrestrial intelligent beings or their vehicles.

0:45:21 Thomas: Vehicles.

0:45:21 Matt: Not really the best use of time. In 2012, voters were asked if the Grand Canyon belonged to Americans or just to Arizona. It would have taken back 1 square miles of Arizona. About 41% of Arizona might have been claimed by the state. It was actually defeated two to one because they wanted to keep that as federal land. Again, just kind of weird libertarian Republican stuff. It didn't make a lot of sense. I'm just giving some examples. That's not necessarily an idea of a mass delusion. And I'm certainly open to the idea of extraterrestrials, but I don't think we'd need a Denver -only ballot question to deal with the problem of extraterrestrials in Denver.

0:45:52 Matt: So that's the kind of thing I was thinking about and the dangers, and as you said, the sort of direct fascist issues that we have here. Because I just can't emphasize enough when you read about the history of fascism and all these different movements, whether you're talking about race science, whether you're taking about all these conspiracy theories about the Jews that have prevailed throughout history in all these different ways and horrible consequences, whether talking about the way that we're now demonizing migrants and undocumented people, everyone else we've been talking about, all kind of ties into the idea of taking people that that you're afraid of and that scare you and putting it into law that we have a problem with them, which is of course how we got to 1692 and to everything that happened in Salem was the fact that everybody agreed that witchcraft, a kind of witches they were afraid of don't exist. And the phenomena that they were scared of was not happening. None of it was happening. It was complete fiction. And these are the things that happen when we pass laws based on nothing.

0:46:43 Thomas: All live in reality, everyone. Maybe that's the best way to do it. That's my constant message. Also think it's important for the left to not buy into delusion and conspiracy theory. And I've seen, I've seeing a fair amount of it. And I don't mean this in the sense of, oh, it's just as bad. I don't mean that.

0:46:57 Thomas: I don't mean it's just as bad, but it's not good. And, and I also THINK that if we want to provide people a firm alternative to some of this stuff, being based in reality and not appearing as though it's like, well, just choose your unreality. You know, like I think it's puts us on more solid footing to resist some of the stuff. I mean, there's just all kinds of almost I didn't say about it. Maybe I still will at some point, but just about like the Trump assassination attempts. There's been all kindsof left wing nonsense about that. That just is like, can we just not can we just not do that? We don't need to. I'm not saying that's going to lead to our our equivalent left wing, you know, fascism. I'm not saying that, but it doesn't, it is not good for anything. It just

0:46:57 Matt: It's not just as bad. Yeah. No, no,

0:47:37 Thomas: Is only bad to,

0:47:39 Matt: Democracy really depends on a consensus reality, on us basically agreeing on what's true and what's not. And it's okay to ask questions and it's Okay, to explore things and maybe consider that there's bigger things going on. But when you make it the basis of your entire political philosophy, that just goes bad places every time.

0:47:48 Thomas: All Well, this was awfully fun. And I mean, was nice to get a spooktacular in there. You a way not as scary and way more scary than your typical spookstacular.

0:48:03 Matt: When you really think about it, yeah, it is terrifying.

0:48:05 Thomas: All right. Well that was a lot of fun. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. Thanks, Matt, for the breakdown. And again, support the show, patreon.com/law. We really would appreciate that. You more spooktacular coverage like this. All right. We'll see you all on Wednesday. And Matt, I'll see for rapid response Friday.

0:48:22 Matt: Spooky season.

0:48:23 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.