Ep. 32 - “Just Doing My Job” and Other Dangerous Lies w/ David Jones

Season 2. Episode 2.
This one doesn’t ease you in—it drops you straight into the fire.

On Episode 32 of Three for the Founders, four longtime friends—Antonio, Jon, Lybroan, and guest David M. Jones—sit with the hardest questions of this moment: ICE, protest, power, and moral responsibility. What does resistance actually do? When does nonviolence persuade—and when does it get ignored? Is working inside an unjust system complicity, strategy, or survival? And how much of your soul is negotiable when money, security, and family are on the line?

Sparked by recent protests, White House messaging shifts, and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the conversation stretches from Minneapolis streets to Ivy League theories of narrative control, from Malcolm X and MLK to modern boycotts and viral hypotheticals. David—COO of a major trade association, political moderate, and longtime friend—brings the inside-the-room perspective: incremental change, pragmatism, and persuasion. Antonio and Lybroanpush back hard, framing ICE as historically continuous with racist enforcement and asking whether silence from “good people” is itself an indictment. Jon presses for precision, accountability, and language that clarifies rather than inflames.

What emerges isn’t consensus—it’s something rarer: honest disagreement held together by trust. This episode wrestles with protest strategy, media ecosystems, “both sides” politics, democratic socialism, long-range planning, and the uncomfortable truth that whoever controls the narrative often controls the outcome. If you’ve ever argued with friends about politics and wondered whether the argument itself still matters—this one’s for you.

Thanks for joining us. Still got questions? Other things to say? Hit us up at Three for the Founders on Instagram, Facebook, or  YouTube and let us know. Til the next time...left on Founders...we out! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's romper room. I see Antonio and I see John. Did you watch Romper Room growing up or was that what white people think?

SPEAKER_04 0:08

Uh we're brothers. We're happy and we're single and we're colored. Alright, cut and print. Beautiful guys. I don't like that.

SPEAKER_07 0:26

Welcome to Three for the Founders, where brotherhood meets the breakdown. We've been having these conversations for years. And now you are invited to join us. We'll say the things you are afraid to say and ask the questions you've always wanted to ask. Three brothers, all truth, no filters. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Adi Dottie, we likes to potty.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Oh, come on, man. You early.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

You early. What DJ? How are you living, brothers? At some point I have to introduce you, but you came on, so we didn't get to do. I told I told them, like, we'll get on before Dave gets on. And then when Dave gets on, we're like, ah, but then LeBron wasn't. LeBron was locked out. He was locked out. That's what we usually do. He was a pleasant surprise. I want to say welcome to Three for the Founders, to a member of Three the Hard Way. This is my deuce. This is David M. Jones. And he's a chief operating officer for a large trade association. He obtained a degree in political science from UCLA and a law degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He's a husband to his beautiful wife and father to his two wonderful kids, both adults, but they'll always be his kids. He loves to travel and meet people from countries and cultures much different than his own, which is why he moved from California to Texas. We'll talk about that a little bit later. Politically moderate, he loves telling both ideological sides that they're crazy. And his current life challenge is to try to become a scratch golfer. I need y'all to welcome King David into the set. Welcome to trying to get the show. Dave Jones. King David. King David is in the house. On some level, should we be thankful for all the bullshit that's going on right now? Because what you're seeing in reaction to it, right, it has brought things to a head. And Minneapolis being the um center of the resistance. Right? They haven't, they Minneapolis hasn't gone away. The Trump regime tried to do this stuff in LA. They came, they were here for a minute, and then they sort of slunk out of town. They went to Minneapolis, trying to announce they were going to Minneapolis. They went to Minneapolis, they shot Renee Good in the face, killed her, and people came out. They people came out. White, black, Latino, Asian. And so all of these people are out in the streets protesting the administration, protesting the regime, protesting ICE, and not going away. And so, in some ways, like, is their naked power grab and white supremacy causing like some sort of positive unification in what has been a very heterogeneous society. Kind of the devil you know kind of thing. Kind of the devil you didn't realize lived in your house.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah. I was thinking something along those lines just before we got on because my sister was watching BBC News and they were showing clips of the White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt. Yeah, Carolyn Levitt, that's right. Uh that the tone changed today. It changed from a couple days ago where the White House was just defending calling Renee Good a domestic terrorist, saying Alex Predi was armed and dangerous, and now they're saying, well, we're gonna hold judgment until investigation comes and the president doesn't believe anyone should be shot in America by law enforcement. So she said that shit today, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that tone shift is indicative of what you're talking about. It's like if something yeah, if something does, if it is allowed to show itself and it's full nasty heinousness, then the other side is forced to deal with it more and face it. And maybe that's what we're seeing. So LeBron is here as a ghost. We're just gonna have him sending text messages.

SPEAKER_06 4:53

The ghost of LeBron. The ghost of LeBron James. So high quality uh setup you got here.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Okay, so how do we solve it? LeBron James is calling in. I can't get okay. Here we go. He's calling in. Oh why'd you have to call in?

SPEAKER_07 5:15

Thank they said as a maximum, it was too many black people on the call.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

So it was is there some part of it that says, okay, now that that's happening, now that it's playing and out in the open, now that they're they they're they're killing white folk under government banner, right? Is that what it's finally gonna take? Because LeBron's good white folk, right? He's been looking for the people who fought in the Civil War, the people who came out, the people who stood up, and the people who tried to change government, and the people who tried to protect others. So that's what they're doing in Minnesota. Is there some part that says, okay, well, thank you for trying to do the grab, DJT.

SPEAKER_06 6:09

But I mean, is it gonna move the needle? You know, because I we we're so polarized right now, you have to people have to their shift their allegiances. Because, you know, Trump had 70 something million people vote for him, he had 70 something million people not vote for him. That's like 70 million people who hate him and are gonna continue to hate him. So if 70 million people take to the streets in protest, it looks like something. It looks like a movement, but is that still the same 70 million people who didn't vote for him?

SPEAKER_03 6:49

You mean now they just out the house, but they had our they already didn't like him.

SPEAKER_06 6:54

They already didn't like him. Yeah. So is there is there actual movement, or is this the same folks who hated him since day one, still hate them, but now they're out marching.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

I don't know, because that seems uh I guess what what made me think of it is is there are a lot of talking heads and media and whatnot, and they keep saying, Well, we're interviewing people who said that well, they didn't vote for this. I'm like, Well, yes, you did.

SPEAKER_06 7:28

Yeah, they did. Everything he's doing now, he said he was gonna do. He said we're gonna do mass, mass deportations, we're gonna have the most deportations in the history of the world. He like said that actively on the campaign, and that's what people voted for.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Okay. I was trying to find some hope.

SPEAKER_07 7:54

I was trying to hope hope hope left about 500 years ago. When they said, get on this boat. We haven't a party.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

No, both of you in in podcasts past have properly accused me of being too optimistic at times and you know, see see everything we've talked about. But I don't know, man. I I I agree with you, David, in a sense that it looks like something. Is it something? Is there any there there? Is there anything? Is there any traction? Is there any activity? And this is you know part of what we talked about last time too. That I I have decided to mix it up a little bit in my social media platforms. I have decided there's a time to check folks. Drop a bomb. And um again, I try to stay above, I try to not just do the visceral who the who are these mother like that reaction. But every now and then I feel like we'll tease out a decent conversation of someone who meant who did vote for Trump, but didn't think this is what it was gonna look like, and is now viscerally bothered by what they're seeing and might switch allegiances next time. To go back to your words, you know, David, like are they gonna have to switch allegiances? And I don't know if it's enough to get people to switch allegiances. I know it's enough for decent people to go, ooh, I don't like that. I don't like the killing people part, but is it enough to get them to switch allegiances?

SPEAKER_06 9:21

What state are they in?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Uh the ones I'm talking about right now are California, but they're in like northern California. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:29

It don't matter. California's California's never voted for Trump or any Republican. Whether you add one more or whether you add a million more, California's electoral votes are already going to whatever Democrat there is.

SPEAKER_03 9:47

That's that's facts. The other question that I had before we get into our topic, because we sort of have a topic, but anyway, that's getting over. We got topics. Um is what is the price of your soul? And I asked that for two reasons. One, there's a social media, um, I guess it's a meme, but it's not a meme, like it's a trend. And it the question is, would you punch your wife for a million dollars? My ex-wife? No, no, no, you punch her for free. You go have your children on here talking about their mama. Um look, right? And and when I saw, would you punch your wife for a million dollars? You know, I showed it to my wife, and I was like, but I would use the money to like help you in the hospital. I could afford your health care. Um and so that was one extreme. Then the ICE recruitment Nazi posters are paying people with a high school diploma or a GED $150,000 starting salary with a $50,000 signing bonus. And so my question is what is the price of your soul? At what point do you participate in something that you know to be wrong or don't know to be wrong simply for the financial gain?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Um I'm first struck by what a uniquely American question this is because this kind it's so hard to live in this country uh with with any ease because of just the cost of living. You mentioned in jest the healthcare side of your wife being injured and you paying for it, because to an American that's a reality. The fact that you can go bankrupt because of medical care, because you you you can't just work a job and participate in what we inherited as the American dream. So I'm just struck by the fact that we have young people who are even in a position to say yes to something like that because very few prospects exist for them otherwise. That the promise of just put your head down and work hard and you're gonna be able to own something, you'll be able to live a good life. We should talk about the different costs of Texas and California sometime along those lines. But uh I'm just struck by the fact that that's a that's such an American way to think. I know it's universal, a desire to have a lot of money, and greed in general is universal, but um man, to even put people in that position to wave that kind of money in front of them is it feels feels gross.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

Oh, and I forgot uh not only the signing bonus and the 150,000, but student loan forgiveness. Uh-oh. Did you say student loan forgiveness? Well, I mean, I get not an application. I know. Can I pick my neighborhood though?

SPEAKER_07 13:09

Because I know some west side neighborhoods where I want to go practice some ice.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:17

What were you gonna say, D? I I mean, I guess the the right answer is there is no price, right? My my soul is is not for sale, and I think, you know, I I'm blessed enough to be in the position that I don't have to make those choices for money. Um, I'm doing all right. But you know, if if you're living in poverty um and you see no way out of poverty, then suddenly, you know, your your sliding scale starts to slide the other way, and it it might not take a million dollars to do something that you know is bad in order for money.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

But the million dollars, right, and I'm not gonna punch my wife. But it really struck me that they are recruiting, you know, and and to to David's point, you know, 70 million people voted for this. So they may just see it as a juicy bonus. Like, wait, you you're gonna do it, but then you gonna pay me a grip to go do it too?

SPEAKER_07 14:29

That's what it is. Like that's I think most of these ICE people would do it for free, actually.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Yeah. They're not seeing it as selling their soul at all. No, right.

SPEAKER_07 14:40

They're seeing it as taking your soul, and they would do that for free, but they just get a $50,000 bonus.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

You haven't heard nothing about the Proud Boys since ICE started their operations and got $75 million, right? $75 billion, sorry. Maybe they just got jobs.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

It isn't that this is the next wave of of uh budgetary planning they're doing. Is that isn't that how how many billions are they proposing to put into ICE now? There's some huge number coming up.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Oh no, the the the number coming up is is like chump change, but they got 75 billion in the one big beautiful bill.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

But I thought there was another round that's happening right now that they're proposing that look like we're trying to stop.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Yes, there is.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

And you're saying that's less than the 75. Significantly. Significantly. Oh my god. I mean, it's don't you guys marvel at at how the money just shows up when they want something? Like it just it seems so hard to get money for certain things that are so obvious. You know, changing healthcare or you know, upgrading our education systems or something like that. But then this this happens, and there's this giant wind in their sales, and suddenly, oh look, $75 billion to pay a dude $100,000 signing bonus times XXX, whatever that is. It's it's remarkable how easy the money is to find when folks are really into the idea. But you got us deep, bro.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

This is like oof. I had a bunch of like I was Dave, we've been we've been these ain't the questions that you sent me before. No, because so here what happened. Well, you wouldn't have found it, Dave. I was watching K-pop Demon Hunters last night. Wow. He said about that. All right. Well, it's nominated, it's nominated for best animated. I have to watch Zoomtopia too. Just doing research for the academy. I got it.

SPEAKER_06 16:46

So we just threw out the agenda because we got to talk about this shit now.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 16:54

Because you you you don't have little kids in the house. So uh what's your excuse?

SPEAKER_03 17:01

But we we do Oscar balloting around here. So if it's nominated, I try to see it before the Oscars.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

For the integrity of the yes. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Well, that's why. Look, you want to move on the defense. That's why centers got 16 nominations. Yeah, fix them shoulder. Look, that's why centers got 16 nominations because they said to all the academy members before you vote, you have to actually watch all the movies. Okay, okay. I watched K-pop Demon Hunters last night and it was good. As you were.

SPEAKER_06 17:40

When did you become part of the academy?

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Did I did I miss something? But I but I want to be. Let me know. It's been a while. Look, it could be. It could be.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

It could be. Don't dress for the for the job you have. Dress for the job. That's right. All right. You were saying K-pop demon hunters. I'm sure it's connected to something.

SPEAKER_06 18:13

I'm sure there was a lucid point in there somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

It's coming.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

I hate all three of you right now. Uh it was a lucid, because I was surprisingly, it was a good movie. Predictable, right? And the hero's journey and whatnot, but it was a good movie. But getting around to some of the deeper themes that it was dealing with were um inclusion, right? The demons that they're hunting are uh their own fears and insecurities. And so I really started to think about this idea of this regime offering all this money to people who may be, to your point, David, impoverished, to people who may not have, you know, a plan for their life that that helps them get out of the situation that they're in. And so what we see on the news are the protesters screaming at a majority of the ICE agents that they've shown have been white men, right? And so it's an easy narrative to write. But uh Esteban commented on one of our posts and he was like, Can we talk about the Hispanic people, the Latin people who are choosing to sign up to be uh ICE agents? Can we talk about the black folk who are choosing to sign up to be ICE agents? And it's super easy to say that they are, you know, Stephen A. Smith or Candace Owens and they're acting out some self-hate. What is more important to it is, you know, what brings you to that point. And that's what I that's and I'm assuming in there that it's bringing someone to a point. Yeah. It's not that there have never been black folk or Latinos or Asians in law enforcement, right? They had to fight to be in those spaces. And still, with what ICE is doing right now, I was really talking about what are the demons that those people are dealing with.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Either before they signed up or after they got in, and they're having to deal with the fact that people are protesting, right? People are in their way, in their face, doing, they're trying to do their job.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

And I'm in no way trying to humanize them because I think their job is trash. But that's really where it came from. So, yes, it's not the it's not are you sock sock shoe shoe? Yeah. That we usually start with, but it was something that was on my mind, and you all are three lucid individuals. I thought that that would be an opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

But you're bringing up something in me, you're teasing out this, this is where my optimism comes from, and maybe it's the complicated nature of human beings, LeBron. Yes. Oh, God. Everybody is an individual, and I know we're part of systems, but if someone does sign up to be an ICE agent, I just want to know why. Is it the I want to be strong? Is it I need the money? Is it I want to be one of the good ones? And there's plenty of people who get into politics for that reason, that get into you know regular law enforcement, not ICE, but policing and other things, because they're like, oh, I I see the system as pretty messed up, but I want to, you know, reform it from within and bring in a lot of that like naive, optimistic energy. And and people are individuals, man. They make individual decisions sometimes for their families that you know that that maybe they wouldn't do otherwise. But um it in this era, I'm I'm finding myself challenged to not paint everybody with the same trash. Like when you say their job is trash, do you mean like it's impossible to be a part of ICE and and Be doing good. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 22:05

I'm just curious, John. If you were like you were like three, four hundred years ago, and you were with your family, and your brother said, you know what, John, I got a job. They're gonna pay me $10,000 a year to be a slave catcher. And not only do I get to catch them, I get to whip they ass, shoot them, and screw their wife, and I still get paid. Is there an excuse for being a slave catcher? Is there any good possible reason to be a slave catcher?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Nope. But if I was in that family and if I was a decent human being, I would be a white dude 400 years ago who thinks like a white dude 400 years ago. And my probably my version of being progressive in that moment would be like, well, you know what, take the job, but be one of the good ones and don't rape their wife and don't beat them with a whip. That that would be a right, right? That'd be the version.

SPEAKER_07 22:55

That's who white people are today. It's the exact same as who white people are today.

unknown 23:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 23:01

You just said it. You'd be plain and clear.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Say more. You'd be okay.

SPEAKER_07 23:04

Say more. What you just said is if I was thinking like white people 400 years ago, I'd be like, yeah, you can do the job, but hey, don't rape the lady, but you know, you can still do the job. That's exactly white people think the same way today. They're for ice, they're for killing kids. Maybe not kill the five-year-old kid, but if you shoot someone here and there to do, it's okay. That's that's the problem with America. That's exactly how white people think right now. Like, I don't know how you shoot a white woman in the face and kill, shoot a white man in the back, and it's okay in America. I knew they was gonna shoot us, but when he all shot killing. Thank you. On New Year's Eve.

SPEAKER_03 23:47

We didn't hear about him until Renee Good died.

SPEAKER_07 23:49

Exactly. So I'm like, if white people are okay with killing each other on television and then calling them a terrorist, we went to a whole nother level, bro. I can't I don't even know this level. This that's why I said Civil War is about six days away.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

It was a joke when you said in the middle of last season.

SPEAKER_07 24:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

Dave, what were you gonna say? You were jumping in there, LeBron. Yeah, sorry, Dave.

unknown 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 24:14

No, I I think it's a mistake to put our beliefs and our ideals into them and then try to look through their eyes like what are they thinking? But if you're saying what are they thinking based off of how you think, that's where the mistake is. Like they don't see the same issues, the same problems. Like, if we not necessarily ice, any kind of law enforcement. Um there are bad cops out there, right? But they're also cops who are heroes and and run and save people. And if that's what they are seeing, and that's why they signed up to to do good, to enforce laws, you know, go out and get the bad guy and go save somebody. Um that's that's looking through their eyes, they're not looking through the eyes of the person who shot this lady or shot this guy. Right? They can say they can probably start analyzing facts and start looking at was the officer's life, did they feel that their life was in danger? You know, was it justified? They're going to really get into the weeds on the actual circumstances, and that's how they are going to view what happened. Um, and even if they come on the side, well, it wasn't justified in that scenario, that's that one scenario, not necessarily the entire force, the entire law enforcement aspect, you know. So it's it's hard to look at your opponent, your enemy, your whoever, and actually truly see it from their side. Because we know how we feel, we know how we think. Yeah. Um, right. And the only like if we were to do it, it would be selling our souls. But if they're doing it, they're not selling their soul because they they see it from a completely different perspective.

SPEAKER_07 26:35

Gotcha. Yeah. So come on, please do Dave. Can you tell me to the best of your ability, what do you think their perspective is?

SPEAKER_06 26:45

Uh, bad guys. That's why most law law enforcement people go into law enforcement because they they see bad guys out there and somebody's gotta go out and do the dangerous job and go get the bad guys and get them off the street. Whether it's the reason I say that. Go ahead. Right. No, no, go ahead, finish that. I mean, whether it's ice, you know, there are bad people who came across the border. Um whether it's law enforcement, you know, um, there are there are there are criminals. There are criminals that you need you need some force, you need some brave people to go out there and go get get the criminals. Um, and that's why most people, from what I understand, most people who choose to go into law enforcement, that's what that's what they see. And that's why. And then along with that is going to come, yeah, there's going to be the dirty cop, there's going to be the the corrupt cop, there's going to be the racist cop who does horrible things, and they can't stand it just like we can't stand it. But that does not mean that the entire concept of law enforcement is somehow evil and nobody should ever be in law enforcement.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

Yeah. But here's my so here's my problem. This is why I said their job is trash is that when you exist as that moral person inside a system that's built on immorality, and I'll go all the way back to the vagrancy laws, which were passed so that you know we used to joke, and we've had this conversation online on the on the podcast, um, where we would make John drive because that way having four or five black folk in the car wasn't going to be a problem. True. Right?

SPEAKER_00 28:38

And so I also happen to have the vehicle to fit all y'all in the back. So we get the proof that we created to fit everybody in the vehicle. It was practical and it was much safer. Can all be considered. Yes indeed. We love the hoopie.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Hoopie. But my point in saying that is when laws are written so that black people break them by being black, right? Right, then law enforcement becomes racist as a system. And so you didn't have a whole bunch of cops who stood up and said those cops who beat Rodney King were wrong. You didn't have cops who stopped cops from killing Sandra Bland or Jeffrey Epstein or uh George Floyd or Amadou Diallo, right? And so if inside the system there are people who are moral, which is what I hear you saying, then isn't there a responsibility to stand up? If there are those moral ICE agents who, for whatever reason, are doing their job, and Jonathan Ross shot this woman in the face three times, right? Where are they?

SPEAKER_06 30:00

It is their job to stand up. Do you I have not heard I sure?

SPEAKER_03 30:16

I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 30:17

But I haven't heard anybody do anything. And and the reason why I are because I'm kind of taking this like I've got some personal history moving to Texas and seeing things that I did not like. Here we are, and being like, okay, what do you do? You know, um if you I'm gonna have to bring in in uh Hamilton. I want to be in the room where it happens because I got a lot more power being in the room, okay? Um but if you're in the room, you can have those conversations. Um, and I have had those conversations with people that I uh adamantly disagreed with, um, but was able to have a calm conversation with them um and move the needle slightly. Like you're not necessarily going to get you know uh hardcore MAGA in one conversation, they're not going to become you know liberal progressive. But you can move socialists. Shout out to I'm done. I said it. You can say it. You can move the needle, you know what I mean? Um, and and changing hearts and minds, it takes a long time. Because if you're talking to a grown-ass adult, it took their entire lifetime to get where they are and in their you know, whatever viewpoints that they have. Having one conversation with a brown dude is not going to suddenly you know snap them to it. But you if you're in the room, you're in that position, you can have that conversation, but you have to do it in a way that is going to you know penetrate. Otherwise, like if I'm having a one-on-one conversation with you know, MAGA, MAGA hat wearing dudes that I disagree with, I can have that conversation with a one-on-one in the room, and you could have a thousand people marching outside the street saying all sorts of you know catchy slogans on their thing, and that's not going to do a damn thing, right? So, me being in the room, having that conversation is much more powerful than the thousand people walking down the street because I have the ability to talk and have that influence with them and say, hey, you know, what are you seeing here? Well, what about this point of view? Have you thought about this? And so when you say they haven't stand up, like what are you expecting? You're expecting them to tear off their shield and and light it on fire in the middle of the street? You expect them to show up at the at the rally and say, you know, I are a bunch of Nazis, and and I'm like, they would lose all of their ability to make change from within if they come out publicly and denounce their own profession.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

So I was tired the way my mama raised me, my daddy raised me, when you burp, you should say, excuse me, at least as loud as you burped. So if I is shooting U.S. citizens, and that's just I'm just using that as the tipping point, then somebody in ICE should be like, that was wrong. I'm not talking about small pieces of influence, and I'm not disregarding the influence that you have in the room. What I'm saying is the challenge with folks of color in law enforcement, the challenge with folks of color in ICE, the challenge with assuming positive intent, which is what we are all taught to do, is that these actions continue, right? Because the system itself perpetuates the actions. And if nobody inside, like what good is it, what good does it do to be in the room where it happens if nothing you say changes what happens outside the room?

SPEAKER_06 34:49

How do you know it's not being said inside the room? You're none of us are in there.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

I don't. What I know is nothing is happening outside the room. That's I you're right. I don't, I'm not in the room. I would love to be in a room with Christy Noam. Let me have a conversation. But she's arresting U.S. senators for trying to ask her questions. So what's she gonna do with me just because I got a podcast? You know, that's my that's my question, that's my challenge. When when when all of the when all of the guardrails on your uh on your work say that regardless of what you do, there's no apology, there's no accountability. Right. The murder, the the the shooting of Renee Good and uh I don't know this dude's name, the nurse. Alex Predi. Alex. Alex Predi, right? Those shootings happened in public.

unknown 35:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

So the accountability should happen in public. That that that that that's how I'm feeling about it. And when there's no accountability happening in public, then I have to say, I don't know if there's anything in it happening in the room, but that actually doesn't matter because there's nothing happening in public.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

The tone change in the White House between two days ago until today tells me that some conversation's happening. Somebody's like, hey, we need to we need to stop calling these people domestic terrorists, we need to actually tone it down a little bit, maybe just to ease things in Minneapolis and beyond. But it's interesting, I'm not trying to be too ecumenical with this. I really see a side the both of your sides because David, I agree. Like I need a judge's I need a judge's ruling. Yes, what is that?

SPEAKER_07 36:41

He used another five dollar word. Can you can you give it a little bit more? You know what?

SPEAKER_00 36:44

I'm glad you checked me on it because I might be using it wrong. I'm gonna look it up right now. It's one of the I don't even know the word.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

I'm like just like I've heard, but I don't know quite what you mean.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Like trying to represent both sides.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

Oh, okay. All right.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

Uh that's what I mean to say. I'm okay. Hold on. I know I can't, I can't I can't let this go. I need to know now if I did it right or wrong. Yeah, he's got to the Googles. General universal uh of a relating to a movement, ecumenical movement, especially among Protestant groups. So it's basically like, yes, it's my church, my church is showing. Well, scripture hour with Brother John. Oh, yeah, indeed. I'm not trying to play both sides. That's how I should have said this. However, sure, I think about the civil rights movement of the early 60s and beyond, and how David's right, you want the conversation to be happening in the room, and you want to be in the room where it happens if you're of that, you know, if if you're in that class or in in that role. And that's where the real change happens because legislation can happen. But does it even does a conversation even get initiated if there isn't protest happening in the streets? Because the the the inflaming of the populace forces the conversation to happen, otherwise priorities go elsewhere. So I I see a role for both of them. Um, but this this connects uh to this. Uh one of one of the conversations I had recently was through a direct message Instagram of a friend of mine who's from San Diego, LeBron, and now he lives in Texas, David. And he he has had he's in Houston, though. And we've had some spicy conversations about this kind of stuff. He's a white dude. Uh I would have I would have assumed he was very progressive, but in some ways he he fancies himself a libertarian, and so he can follow along MAGA lines, quite frankly, in some of the ways he talks, and other times when it comes to social issues, he's very liberal. But he had he took issue with me calling out ICE for this recent murder of Alex Freddie, and and because I'm I was basically saying that the this is why I get so mad at the administration, I get mad at the messaging. Because the good people, the good moral people who are saying, to your point, David, I'm gonna join this organization, ICE, law enforcement, whatever, because there are bad guys. I believe they're bad guys, I believe I'm a good guy, and one of the reasons they believe that is because of the narrative that they've been fed from our leaders. That's why I get really pissed off when the narratives that our leaders are are saying are are deceitful or deliberately filled with lies in one direction. My whole point being that he challenged me saying, Well, don't you find that folks who call ICE the Gestapo is also an unfair, unrealistic, and misleading uh uh labeling of them. And I appreciated the intelligence of that. And I said, you know what, I think you're right. I think the gestapo is the wrong term. I do think the gestapo operated differently and operated at a time when most of German Germany actually accepted them as something good. I think ICE is more like slave catchers, like you're talking about, LeBron. I think they're operating more like slave catchers. And yet where they what they are doing is legal according to the law right now, uh to some degree, but many but it is immoral and it is uh chaotic and it is reckless and it is inhumane, even if you call it legal. So they they remind me more of the slave catchers than the Gestapo. So I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_07 40:13

What if we had we created something called the OJ team? Where they hired a bunch of black dudes, we put on a mask, and we just start grabbing and shooting white women and screwing white women because white women are out of control. Anyone who looks like a Karen, you just grab them, do what you want with them. How would that go over? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

This is LeBron's version of a modest proposal. Was it Thomas Penn or was it?

SPEAKER_03 40:41

Was that Thomas Penn? That was UCLA. I told you it's a good school.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Like, I don't know why you keep downplaying where he basically said we need to eat the homeless people, right? Like that was that's what made the most sense.

unknown 40:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

So LeBron's making a modest proposal. It's practical, easily identifiable.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Okay. I can't.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

All right. So when I was saying Gestapo and slave catchers with the ice, I saw some some heads going in different directions. You saw me shaking.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

You were saying it's le slave catchers were legal by the laws and they weren't, right? Because they were operating in states where slave catching was against the law and yet they were still doing what they wanted to, much like is you know, shooting and detaining and kicking indoors in places they're not supposed to. Like a lot of the things that they're doing are not legal, even though the overarching whatever of immigrations and customs enforcement has a legal framework.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

But David, uh you know, I mean I I appreciate the I appreciate the intellectual honesty of this conversation. Me too. All right, if we're gonna if we're going to get down to to legal issues, what you can argue is justifiable, what you can't, brass text. Yes. And I keep coming back to I think where you were going with it, Antonio, which is look, all right, MLK in that era, he had a very specific philosophy that he learned from his faith, that he learned from watching Mahatma Gandhi of you know, civil disobedience, nonviolent protest. And that's and but you also had Malcolm X and you had so many others going, that shit doesn't work, you know. Um and here we are with like ICE showing up acting a fool. And yet we have to be the ones to show extreme we, anyone who protests out there and puts their body on the line, have to show extreme self-control, extreme awareness of what is a law and what isn't. And oh, am I obstructing right now? Like, what was that woman doing in this case that triggered the vice agent to pepper spray her, which triggered Alex to step in between? And I wonder if the four of us were in that situation, would we have sat there and thought, wait a minute, this is illegal, I'm obstructing her, or would have been like, dude, he's pepper spraying this lady right now. Thank you. Like, what would we have done?

SPEAKER_07 43:17

Because we're a human being, so we would have reacted the way a human being reacts. But the law does not appreciate human beings. The law and being human is two different things. It all comes down to this. Dave knows he he practiced the law. It only comes down to power, power, privilege, plan, execution. If I got the power, the law's on my side. The law doesn't matter. There is no right or wrong. It's who has the power to influence the law, just like you see it now. They can kill people. The lady was innocent, Petty was innocent, but they have the power to frame them as guilty or possibly guilty. And then they hire people like Dave who can who have the Linguistic ability to persuade you even further using legal jargon. So as long as they got the power, they're right. So it doesn't matter if you're a peaceful protester, Martin Luther King, it doesn't matter. If they want you to be guilty, you're guilty. So if you don't have the power, just sit down and be quiet. Don't even protest. For what? They can hire more Dave than we can, because they got all the money. You hire Dave, every black person guilty. Because he's a lawyer. We're not. January 6th. What happened to them?

SPEAKER_06 44:39

What's the purpose of a protest? What protests have been successful?

SPEAKER_07 44:43

January 6th?

SPEAKER_06 44:47

MOK?

SPEAKER_07 44:49

No, January 6th. No. January 6th was successful. That's the only one I've seen.

SPEAKER_03 44:53

I mean, the Voting Rights Act, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 44:57

Civil Rights Act, Care Housing Act, Voting Rights Act. So that's the nonviolence, or was that Malcolm X is by any means necessary?

SPEAKER_03 45:13

Both.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

LBJ signed it, right? No, no, no. Because to your point, yeah, LBJ signed it. But but to your point, David, because of his nonviolence, Martin Luther King Jr. was in the room. And because of Malcolm's acceptance of all the tools, including violence, right? Because Malcolm X never advocated violence except in self-defense.

SPEAKER_06 45:39

Wouldn't Malcolm have won the day if everybody was Malcolm?

SPEAKER_04 45:44

If there was no it wouldn't have even been a civil war.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

There would have been a war. We had white people in the early 60s. No.

SPEAKER_03 45:55

No. It would have, I, I, it I I I'm calling it, I'm saying no because his success, I don't know what his success would have looked like, and neither did he, right, in terms of his evolution. But I can say that Martin was successful because the bus boycott succeeded in getting segregation laws in Montgomery repealed. Right. His national campaign, his national campaign, just to answer your question, his national campaign led to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, which on paper said that it was now illegal to discriminate in these census.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

Right.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

So I would say, yes, he was successful. Would he have been successful if there wasn't this threat of black militancy? I don't think so. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

It's important to note too that it was it was more than protest, it was boycotts. It was weeks and weeks and weeks of people not using the buses. Well, that was that was economic that was a Montgomery bus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

I know, but that was a year in Montgomery, and that was the bus system.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

It wasn't national boycotts that got the Civil Rights Act passed, right? Montgomery 1954 to 1955, Civil Rights Act was 64 and Voting Rights Act was 65.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Like we're talking about difference. I will always bow down to the historian's uh astute uh timeline knowledge for sure. Yes. My point not necessarily being that the Civil Rights Act was a direct relation to the bus boycott of Montgomery. I'm I'm pointing out the bus boycott to say that to David's point, it wasn't just a protest, it was a boycott. It was people making it economic sanctions from the ground up, and that's where differences get made. And it's interesting because this has me thinking about uh what's his name, Scott Galloway. He said if if American citizens really wanted to do something, protests aren't it. If they economically boycotted this company, this company, this company for weeks and weeks and hit them in the paycheck, that's when people are gonna start having these conversations versus the protest. But that takes that takes a pretty concerted effort. That takes a leader galvanizing that, and then takes a willing citizenry that's that motivated enough. I know you all protest in your own ways, but like Antonio, like I don't buy from Amazon. You protested when you say I'm not gonna pay for Spotify anymore because they do ice ads. Those are protests, but those are real. That's probably more effective than getting out of the streets.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

If we're if we're if we're putting me all on blast for the case.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Listen, I've stopped I stopped Target a minute ago. Yes. And it's very inconvenient at times.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

It's very we don't have H E B, David.

SPEAKER_06 48:42

That sounds like a personal problem. It is a personal problem.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

It's not a personal problem, it's a California problem. Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_06 48:49

There's a house right down the street waiting on you, brother. Got your name on it.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Oh, $17,000. Uh-huh. Yes. Although.

SPEAKER_06 49:04

Well, I I I guess kind of my the to can to conclude my my devil's advocacy, my personal opinion is that um I think when the protests uh uh when it turns violent, then you've lost. Because the people that are against you, all they're going to do is point to the violence.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

And dismiss it.

SPEAKER_06 49:35

And dismiss and say it's your own damn fault. Um I think that is what that is what won the Civil Rights Act was was nonviolent. Um when people were taking the hit. People walking down the street and you saw the the police were the bad guys. The police and the law enforcement and the government were the ones with the hoses and the batons and beating the crap out of you know teenagers because they had the gall to threaten the system. Um when you are so, you know, there there's like an old the image that pops into my head is you know uh desegregating the schools. Um and you have the little kids, little little brown kids walking into school being guarded by law enforcement, and there's like an image I think we could probably find is a photo and it had it in my office of the the the faces of the white people.

SPEAKER_03 50:43

Oh yeah, no, I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_06 50:46

Pure unadulterated rage because this little black girl is coming to their school. Pure rage. That was the image. Now, today, what do we have? Now today it is not the the police who are the ones with the batons and all that. Now we have the protesters. The protests are the ones who are angry, the protests are the ones who are on TikTok losing their baskets at rage at the police. And you can have and there are images of the police just sitting there not being the ones that are violent, with protesters blowing the whistle, being flipped off, saying all these horrible, nasty things, calling them all these names of Nazi and all this stuff. It's like a reverse image of what was done in you know the civil rights in the 60s. I I think the image, once the protesters turn violent, and once the police go, are you finished yet? I think the protest loses its steam. And when you have situations like this, when you like if you have a peaceful protester who is totally, completely peaceful, walking down the street and the police come in and start knocking some heads, then the sympathy goes out to the protesters. But when the protesters are the ones who are angry and yelling and screaming and cussing, and they're the ones you know being aggressive in the scenario, and then the police protect themselves. Um I think that's a harder argument to sell. And I don't think that with angry protests, you people like lose the moral high ground when the protest stops being peaceful and the people who you are trying to convince completely check out and hold it against them and say, no, it's your own fault.

SPEAKER_03 52:55

There's two things, two things that you made me think of when you said that. Okay, go. One is, and you and I had this conversation a while ago, what is what are you seeing where you are, and what am I seeing where I am, right? Whether it's social media or television or whatnot. Cass Sunstein called this in 2008 the Daily Me. And I haven't seen ICE officers or police standing quietly by while they're being yelled at by protesters in any of the social media, in any of the media that I am by. Right? And I hear what you're saying to the point where you lose the moral high ground if you are the perpetrator of violence. My challenge is, and John mentioned this earlier, that if I'm a trained law enforcement officer, I'm expecting more from you. I'm not expecting you to react back and forth. And the shooting of whether there's a devil's advocate argument that it was in self-defense, of Alex Predi because he was armed, even though he's allowed to be armed, or of Renee Good, who was behind the wheel of her car and being literally trying to be pulled out when she accelerated by one agent when another agent was in the vicinity of the front of her car. I have, as a citizen, a higher expectation of those responsible for the enforcement of laws and allowed to carry weapons as part of their job description. And you could say that I'm naive, but I have a higher expectation of their behavior and reactions because I expect that they're trained in order to have those things.

SPEAKER_06 55:08

Yeah, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_03 55:09

And so, right, but you know, to the point of where if people are angry, right, and this was the second piece of what I was thinking about, because we've talked about it a little bit as a group, but white people are not used to not having their rights. And so there's a moral indignance that comes to your point about the the picture of uh the young black woman who's walking by herself because she got separated from the group going into Little Rock. Yeah, high school. I know what you I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. No, not Ruby Ridges, but she's a high school student. And she's walking, and behind her, there is another girl who's a white girl who is vehemently angry. Yes. She's a white, she's a young white girl who's not used to having her rights or her opinion or her feelings about the country denied. And I will say that you have a lot of white people, Alex Pretty maybe one of these, Renee Good may be one of these, who are finding themselves having their rights denied and they're reacting with the same emotional vehemence that those people who are reacting against uh desegregation were. I still expect law enforcement, whether that's immigrations and customs, whether that's the local PD, whether that's the California Highway Patrol, whether that's the sheriffs. I don't know about the Texas Rangers because I don't know if that's an actual law enforcement group, right? But I still expect that those people have a little bit more uh patience, energy, uh reticence to use force because their job is to enforce the law, their job is not to carry out the sentence.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

De-escalation, yes.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

Right? And so it's hard, and I understand what you're saying about being devil's advocate, that's one thing. I started out our whole conversation by saying that job itself is trash because the system puts its puts people in positions where they have to do those things that I'm expecting without giving them the training. And they have to do those things that I'm expecting, which almost says they have to take their humanity and their emotional reaction back a step. They're not supposed to react emotionally. Because that's not their job. But when I've seen people, when I've seen ICE agents kick over the memorial to Renee Good and then threaten people who are putting the candles back, I have a problem.

SPEAKER_01 58:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:12

And that's the that's the that's where I say that job is trash. And I'm okay with that. I I get the, I totally, I get the devil's advocate. I would say the Jesus advocates need to need to step up and start speaking, to LeBron's point. But there's a whole piece of it where everybody is just acting the way they are, but one group has a job that is putting them in a position to carry out violence on behalf of their emotions, not even on behalf of the law.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

Well, a minute, your job description includes carrying a deadly weapon. We have every right to expect that they would be trained to never have to use it if they don't have to. Right? And I also expect, on top of what you just said, Antonio, I expect our political leaders to not make up lies to support what just happened, but instead to say what happened was a tragedy, and we're gonna put our full power into investigating and making sure we're holding ourselves accountable to the highest standards. And that's what I'm hearing you say, Antonio. Like it would be nice if someone within ICE or within this administration would step up immediately and say, that was absolutely wrong. We we really need to let this play out legally before we make a judgment, but we do not want that to be the outcome. Instead, what do we see from our leaders? It's so clear to anyone who's got eyes that she's a domestic terrorist and she was agitating like that level of jumping on to defend ICE is a cancer in our leadership. That's what's really, I'm pissed off at that more than anything else. Because it's continuing, it's perpetuating this narrative of people going, yeah, I want to be one of the good guys who works for ICE and deals with those domestic terrorists. Man, that's the narrative we've got to shoot down. Those are the people who need to get taken out of leadership positions. But they're in the highest leader positions in the land right now. LeBron, what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_07 1:00:15

I can't say it on this podcast, so I'm gonna let y'all keep talking.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:18

No, but you can say it on the look, you can say it on the recording. Editing power I will.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:24

Well, let me say before John, uh before LeBron journal. John, um, like I agree 100% what you said. Like, that's not something I could even pretend to be a devil's advocate. That lady is that lady is nobody's domestic terrorist. And that was thank you. Like, it's it it's idiotic. Um, you know, I I agree. Uh I I think it's uh Trump, he had has advanced no social training whatsoever. He he's an ass, he's a braggart, he's a narcissist, like he he he's all that stuff. Um like you hoping or wishing that we had leadership, like, come on, dude. Not not with Trump.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:14

No, no, but JD Vance was the one who came out and started just talking all kinds of madness about both victims right away. Christy Gnome did as well. They had to defend ICE first, which is just bullshit, man. The level of of the lack of accountability from them is really disturbing. You're right. I I don't expect it from Trump. Trump's Trump. He's just but his sycophants and the people at these positions, if they had any integrity, they wouldn't just automatically come to defend those ICE officers by demonizing the victims first. They are the infection. Yeah. He is the head of the pimple. He's the head of the pimple. Nasty. LeBron, what what do you want to say on this podcast that won't go to air?

SPEAKER_07 1:01:59

No, but I'm just saying, it just it just never ceases to amaze me, American history. As long as whoever has the power creates the narrative. Whoever creates the narrative creates how we think and what we believe. It's not what you see, it's do you believe your lying eyes? Once the power people tell you this is what the story is, even though you see the opposite, they keep saying it, you will then change your narrative. It's a battle of narratives. And if you don't control the airwaves, if you control the camera angles, if you don't have the best lawyers, so all of us have no power. We have nothing we can do, so we talk. Because we're all fearful of white people. That's it. So the only people who are gonna stop white people are other white people. So that's what I'm waiting for. I'm like, where's the white people with power who are gonna challenge these other white people? Because Latino, blacks, everybody ain't got no power. We just slaves who can read and write. That's all.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:07

This minute of optimism has been brought to you by Papa James' son.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:14

If anything I said is wrong, please, if one thing I said was wrong, please push back.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

So Dave brought up Malcolm X. I mean, in this conversation. But Malcolm said, if you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Amen.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:37

That's why he doesn't have a holiday because he spoke the truth. Remember, anybody that America holds up as a good person of color only serves white people's interests. Malcolm H. Martin Luther King only serves the interests of white people. That's why he has a holiday. That's why they talk about him. Because anyone that white people like is not good for us. That's just a fact. If white people like you, you ain't good for us.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:10

I know you're not saying Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't good for black people.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:14

He's not good for us. You can have a different opinion. I'm just saying, if what look, if white people celebrate him, there's a reason why they celebrate him.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:25

But they didn't want to celebrate him. Stevie Wonder just made the song. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. And here's what I'm gonna say. Yes. The the the Martin Luther King Jr. that gets quoted, the Martin Luther King Jr. who gets lifted up in black and white photos instead of color because there was color photography and he's color.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:53

That sanitized package, Martin Luther King Jr. Yes, he serves the interests of power.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:03

Yes, that's what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:04

Martin Luther King Jr. got shot in the neck. That's the Martin I liked, but we didn't get to see him. Right. But that's the Jesus you like too. He was killed by the state. That's the Malcolm you like to the point. He's not celebrated, he's sanitized. That's different.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:29

Yeah, I'm with you. But that being said, yeah. So do y'all have friends from way back in your life?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:39

And if you do, how do you do it like this?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

Oh Lord. This is look, but this is the perfect display of four men with friendships that go back decades, literally decades, to the 20th century. 6990. Ebbed and flowed through life changes. Yes, through pledging. We hated and hated LeBron for a little while. We hated that dude. We did not want to be associated with him because he pledged us. For real. And yet here we are arguing what chopping it up, saying no, yes, no, talking over each other. And is there any love that we have lost between each other? Of course not. This is friendship, man. Not an ounce. Not an ounce.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:33

But you know, we next time you come over, John, I might make you pay for pizza or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:41

Is that just reparations? Just reparations? Hey, I got a question for you. Because I haven't asked too many questions to start too much shit tonight. Who is you? Yeah, right. Man, shut up. Um, David, in the bio that you sent me, and John in the video that you posted, which I appreciated and reshared and did all the things as you were rallying white people to get their shit together. You both said that, like Dave, your words were, I like telling politicians of both sides that they're crazy. And John, what you said was that politicians on both sides do it. And I I didn't take umbrage, but I did pause a moment at both of those. Because it felt like an inability or an unwillingness, and correct me if I'm wrong, to say, no, these people are wrong. Because out loud, actually standing for a value is dangerous or scary in this moment. And I don't like that could be me, right? That could be me, my whole thing, and I'm putting it on y'all because y'all just happen to say it out loud. Yeah, a little projection. Little projection. But is that the space that we're in? Like, I'm thinking about democratic socialism because I'm watching Zoramamdani do what I think is right, right? And so I looked at it, it's not a political party, it is simply a movement and a philosophy. And so is it that really both sides are doing shit, or is it one side is doing it and one side is reacting?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:46

You you want my take? Yep. Um my my grand philosophy is that we're all human beings and none of us are perfect. We all good, good, bad, and ugly, every single one of us. Um no political party has a monopoly on being good. Or nobody's all good, nobody's all bad. Um, and so you, you know, people on the left can lie, cheat, and steal too. Um they could be they can be corrupt, you know, uh a good loyal Democrat can can cheat on their wife just like a Republican can, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:25

Go with Jeffrey Epizine. Yep. I see you, Bill Clinton.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:28

And I mean so that's kind of my my my baseline. Um and so that's why I look for uh like like the truth. As much as I I can get the truth, I know there's we don't get all the information, depending on what news channel you get, you're gonna get two different, very different versions of what happened in the story. So I try to look at both both sides. I try to look get my information for both sides. I will read, like I'll I'll watch Fox News, which is like a favorite pastime in my house. Every time I was like, oh, are you watching that again? It's like, look, I I want to know what the other side is saying. I gotta, I gotta know everything. Um I I I want to know because I don't trust if somebody says Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, I don't trust that they're going to tell me everything that I want to know. Tell me everything, and then if he's the threat to democracy, then once I know everything, I will see it too. You know, but if you've got your thumb on the scale in order to make him a threat to democracy, I'm gonna call it bullshit. Like it it's okay. You know, I I I just want to know all of it and I will make up my own mind. Maybe I will come to the same conclusion as you. Maybe I won't. But I I I do not like somebody who's already made up their mind trying to push me to their side or pull me to their side by giving me a load of crap. Don't don't tell me that it's ran.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:17

Now, Fox is gonna give you lies and a load of crap, and then the Democrats are gonna give you lies and a load of crap. So then how do you discern from that? Do you believe them or your lion eyes?

SPEAKER_06 1:11:29

I you know, I I try as best I can to read between the lines. Um if there's video, if there is uh if it's a tape, you know, let's roll the tape. And and I'll look. Um, understanding that I I might not see it all, but you know, in the in this age, you you really can't know everything that you need to know.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:52

It's impossible, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:54

Yeah, it's impossible because there's you know so much BS. But if somebody says that Donald Trump said something, I mean, play the tape, let me hear it. Yep, he sure it did. He's an asshole. Or you cut it, you cut out the middle, you put this together, you put this together, and then you sliced it together, that's bullshit. You know, I want to know what's what's real. Um it's funny, I was not too long ago, I was scrolling through, I don't know, Instagram or Facebook or something, and one of those little tests came up for you to answer, and it was like, what type of philosopher, what type of philosopher are you? And so I scrolled up, oh this is interesting. It was it was dumb. But it was like five or six questions.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:41

Yeah, but it's some shit that you would answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:43

But then, I was gonna say, he didn't he didn't do the which friend are you? Are you Chandler? Are you you didn't do that one, you did the philosopher one.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:51

And so at the end of it, it said, You are a pragmatist. And I said, damn, that's pretty damn good. That is pretty damn good. Like you are damn right. Like, yep. I want to, I want to see what works. That it's gotta work. You know, my the folks at my job, the folks that I come come across, you know, I they're they're conservative. I have conversations with them. A lot of them just don't get it, they don't understand, they think, oh, you know, racism in the past, that doesn't happen anymore. Oh, come on, that those are isolated incidents, or um, so I'm like, yeah, let's sit down and let's have a conversation because I can tell you stories just from my life. Not everybody else's life, not from the news, just in my life of shit that has happened to me. Right? Some of some of that has happened with me and you in the car.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:50

Right? And me.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:52

Like it it's it's this is not in the past, right? When we talk about you know racism, it it didn't stop when they signed the Civil Rights Act. Discrimination didn't stop. It still happens, it's still going in today. It's different, it's changed, it's underground, you can't blatantly be racist and live a comfortable life.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:14

You can be elected president. I'm just saying, you can be racist and be elected president and be blatantly racist.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:23

So I so I mean that that's basically so when I say, you know, I I call both sides and and call them crazy. I'm like, look, some of the stuff the Democrats say, hey, that's a great idea. I'm with you on that one. It's like, ooh, wait, you're gonna do what? No, nope, can't go with you on that one. And so it's I I like I am a independent no party. Not the independent party. Like, I do not I I am not registered to anybody because I think they're all crazy. At least so I I voted for Democrats before, I voted for Republicans before. If if what you're saying makes sense, then I'll go, yeah, that makes sense. If you sound crazy, I'm gonna go, no, that's crazy. And I don't care if you got an R by your name or a D by your name.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:16

So uh Ted Cruz, Jasmine Crockett, or James Tallarico for Senate in the state of Texas.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:24

I hate that Talarico and Crockett are against each other.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:26

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:27

None of the three?

SPEAKER_06 1:15:29

No, none of the three.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:34

I can protest. Peace. No. So you don't like any I can have a protest vote.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:42

I mean, it's gonna be you're not voting, but that's the I that's my thing. I'm not mad at it.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:49

You want me to write your name in?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:50

You don't like any three of them, David? No, that's not true. Go ahead, write my name in. I'm a liar.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:54

No, uh to be honest, Talon Rico, I it it's funny. Like, you know what I do. I I work right across here from the Capitol. I've like met and talked to a lot of them. Um seems like a good dude, seems seems nice enough. Um Jasmine, I don't like her style. Ted Cruz, too, too conservative for me. Like when I say I voted for a Republican, it's like a moderate, just over the line Republican, not Republican, far to the right Republican. Um but that's the same with the Democrats. I like I I float back and forth between moderate Democrat and moderate Republican, if you can kind of make sense. But once either one gets far out to the to the left or to the right, I'm out.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:43

Yeah, I'm far, I'm far out. You think you you would uh identify as far, far, far left, Antonio? Um this democratic socialism thing, I'm kind of down with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:57

My whole idea about what the purpose of government is, um, is to is not about protecting the populace. It's about serving the populace. But I like AOC. I like Zoran, right? Yeah. Mamdani. And the more I think about the philosophy of politics and what they believe that government is supposed to do and be, the more I am accepting of it. I have no problem um being a firebrand. I have no problem, like with Jasmine McCrockett's style. Um, and so that for me is okay because what they're attempting to do is serve in in my serve others, let me say that, because I think Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are trying to serve themselves. Um look at the net worth how it's and and I'm not saying that that there aren't Republicans who've had good ideas or good policy ideas or whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:57

So you know, in times like this, is it's it's really uh I'm butchering exactly what you said, but it's we got to stand for our values now more than ever. And you're right, which and which is different than standing for a party now more than ever. And I'm equally uncomfortable with aligning myself wholeheartedly with one that is always right and one that is always wrong, against one that's always wrong. And part of it, when you you mentioned my post, part of it, that the specificity of that was that people on both sides are using words and language and narratives that are just knee-jerk reactions that don't have a lot of thought to them that are causing harm. And I I want to start with introspection first when it's a big deal like this. And that's kind of what I hear you saying too, Dave, is like, you know, I need to, I need to be true to me first. And I need to see where I might be wrong here, and not just start preaching and yelling if I'm being hypocritical because a lot of what we're dealing with is knee-jerk reactions and things right now. And so when I say something like, hey, on both sides, I see this happening, what I'm calling out is the lack of introspection and the lack of thinking first before speaking, and like being careful with what narrative we put out there. Like, David's striking me, man. I'm I'm going like, you know, what what is the narrative that the left is creating with violent protests? And when I say violent, I mean creating images that the other side uses to justify dismissal. Like, could that energy be put elsewhere that's more effective? That's something I'm gonna think about. That's you got me thinking along those lines. And I just think I'm glad people are out, I'm glad people are yelling, I'm glad people are making their thoughts known. But I'm also really into what works, what what is effective, what's gonna make the folks who are in the room actually have the conversation with someone.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:46

LeBron, I wasn't leaving you out, you just haven't publicly stated anything that's in both sides, and so we know what side LeBron's on.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:55

No, I just buy people.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:00

But I was gonna ask the volume. Oh, wait, people.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:06

LeBron, I'm gonna say what you say. LeBron, I'm curious. Tell me, how is it you can say on this podcast that you have more white friends than black friends, and then at the same time, you can say that all we do is kill and rape and pillage because that's our game. How can you be friends with us?

SPEAKER_07 1:20:24

But by the way, the same way y'all can fear, the same way a white woman can get into an elevator and clutch her purse when the black man is on the elevator, but then when he says his name is Michael Jordan, she pulls her panties down. I don't care about people's political affiliation. If they're Democrat, Republican, independent, that's personal. All I care about is who are you down with? Are you down with your people or are you down with the other team? That's all I care about. If you, if, if, if I'm a Republican and I'm doing everything I can as a Republican to help black people, I'm with you. If you're a Democrat, but you still don't care about black people, you only care about yourself, then I am with you. So if you're for the disenfranchised or you're for the oppressed, I don't care what your political affiliation is. Just use it to help those who are oppressed or disenfranchised. You don't need a political party for that. But the smartest people we have don't work for us. So the way you help disenfranchise and oppressed is you get the smartest people to work to help. That's what Trump did. The Heritage Foundation, all of them, they say, look, we feel like we're leaving our country. So let's go into a think tank, let's put millions of dollars together, let's get the best lawyers, let's get the best strategists, let's get the best advertisers, and we'll put together a plan and execute it through this idiot. When do we do that? When do we do that? Our smartest people are like, oh, I can't be with you, and I can't be with you. Yeah. See, they don't, they don't, they don't, they don't, they ain't down for their people, they're down for self. So how do we get those self-interested people to realize you have ancestors, you got kids, grandkids, cousins. So who's looking out for us if the smartest of us don't look out for us?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:21

What were you writing, Antonio, Project 2090, 2080? What was it?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:24

2096.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:25

2096, what's the significance of that date?

SPEAKER_05 1:22:28

2096.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:30

It's it's it's as far as long-range planning as I can figure out. Okay. LeBron has brought up and introduced the idea of long-range planning to us and saying that that um Project 2025 was long-range planning. Like it, they had written it 50, 60, 70, 100 years ago. So 2096 was me thinking about what do I think if the United States is to exist, it should be as a heterogeneous society. And it went into term limits on the Supreme Court. It went into sample, you know, sample, sample testing for the census as opposed to knocking on doors. It went into truly advocating for the less fortunate or the less blessed or the less privileged, however you want to language that. Um, what is the purpose of the government and how do we create that world that we want to see, not for ourselves, probably not for our children, but for our children's children? How do you be a good ancestor? So that was 2096. And I really wanted to start thinking about that because I think there's some power in that, in that long-range planning. That's what that was. Dave, this has been a lot of uh a lot more politics and a lot more lawyering than I anticipated. Uh, we didn't even get to ask the lawyer to join your podcast.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:06

What did you think was going to be?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:07

What do you expect? Can I say this out loud? I asked my friend to join my podcast. Um and your friend is a lawyer. And my friend is a lawyer. He's my lawyer, actually. I gave him a retainer years ago and said, shit, if I get in trouble, now I'm calling you. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:24

Is that why I owe him a pizza? He's trying to get on my payroll.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:28

Hey, on retainer. On retainer. That's the only law speak I need to know. What I was gonna say is, David, uh, you know, we always let the guests have the final word. So it's your final word.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:42

Hey man, I I I appreciate y'all. I love y'all. We go back a long time, and I most probably the great majority of stuff that we've done together, we can never talk about on any podcast ever. And that about y'all.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:59

Fair. Fair.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:02

You know, I love where we've come from. I I love where we are now, you know, even though I'm several states away, you know, first time I've seen y'all in months, and immediately we're right back to where we were, you know, years ago when we was hanging out in person. And I love it. It's great to see y'all. Um, and and thanks for the invite.

SPEAKER_07 1:25:25

Man, thank you so much, Dave, for coming on here, man. I appreciate you. It's good to see you, my brother. I love to see my people being successful, man. And so I'd love to see you doing your thing, family man, and everything, but keep up, keep doing the great work you're doing, man. Keep living your best life, Dave.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:44

Before we jump out here, the reason I literally, it was like, we gotta get Dave on here, right? Because this is my adult friendships. Um and everybody on here is doing many a myriad thing, but it felt not incomplete, but like there was a piece that I wanted to add. And so the next time you come back, I really do want to ask the questions, right? What does it mean to be a friend? And one of our producers said, make sure that you talk about male friendships because those are different from female friendships, and I do want to explore that, right? I appreciate you. I'm glad you were here. Uh, you know, this is how we do, as we always do, left on founders.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:41

Left on founders. Go by.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:44

Go on, Dave. We out. Bye y'all. Appreciate you, Dave.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:48

Much love, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:49

Love y'all.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:50

Thank you for joining us. Still got questions? Other things you want to say? Well, hit us up at 34hefounders.com on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or TikTok. Or send us a text through Buzz Sprout. Remember to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast and share the pod with someone you think can benefit from it or add to the conversation. Till the next time, Left on Founders. We out.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:19

Thank you for listening to the Three for the Founders podcast. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of any professional or academic institution. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only. Listen at your own risk of becoming whook.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:40

Hey, so yo, so your wife is inviting us to your house.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:44

Dude, I didn't even know. I was like, We're having a Super Bowl party.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:50

I guess we are. She saved me because I had just said, Daniela, look, we're having a Super Bowl party, and then we're having my birthday party. And then we're having uh uh uh oh an Oscar party, right? Right. David, can you hear us now? I can hear you. Can you hear me? I can hear you. We got you now. Guess who's back?

SPEAKER_07 1:28:13

Back hey Dave, what while we're waiting, before we solve white folks' problems, what is your handicap, dog? We gotta play some golf, dude.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:22

Um 12, 13, something around there. Oh, damn, you're good.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:26

I'm I'm like an 18.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:28

We gotta get out there, man. Yeah, show me something. Antonio's gonna get some drank now, too. So we still don't know. So still don't know what happened technically. Our smooth operation, smooth operation.