Rich picks up on a theme started back on May 2 asking the question if we can't talk about our issues in a civil manner, are we bound for another Civil War.
Engage the conversation on Substack at The Common Bridge!
Rich picks up on a theme started back on May 2 asking the question if we can't talk about our issues in a civil manner, are we bound for another Civil War.
Engage the conversation on Substack at The Common Bridge!
[inaudible]
Speaker 2:Welcome to the podcast. The common bridge with Richard helpy rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology health and finance space. He and his wife, Leslie are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors, but with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children. My name is Brian Kruger, and from time to time, I'll be the moderator and host of this podcast. And welcome back to the common bridge Ridge. It's good to have you back again, and we're going to do something today. That's actually a continuation of an episode that you did back on May 4th. Uh, it was entitled civil discussion or civil war, and it was real popular with our listeners. So hopefully we can pick it up again. So, uh, in order to do that, why don't you give a quick recap and kind of launch us into part two of civil discussion and civil war?
Speaker 3:Well, there are some strong parallels between our country today and the way that we are beginning to other, uh, other people, uh, and dehumanize them. And that resulted in a very bloody civil war that, uh, we're still recovering from, frankly. And I see us sliding that direction, uh, in a way that is fairly scary. And, you know, I, I just keep thinking about what we do today or what we don't do now is going to have an impact for generations. And we just celebrated father's day. Uh, so I'm thinking about future generations a lot, and I see this contention going on and I just have to ask myself and now what what's going to happen next. And too often, we have people thinking that this moment in history was suddenly upon us and that, uh, nothing happened before and nothing's going to happen after. But I think if we unwrap that, what we find is that everything that's occurred today is a result of a decision made earlier. And if we appreciate the fact that the people that made those decisions made them based on the best information and hopefully with the best intent that they had at the time, you know, looking into the future, it created other issues. And I like to think about an operative question when examining a prior decision or prior conduct, did things get better? Did they get worse? Did they stay the same? You know, what would have been the result of different decisions? You know, if we keep winding the clock backward and vilifying the past and destroying it, it means that we're not going to learn from history. And eventually we're going to find that no time and no person save one was ever perfect. It's just utter nonsense to think that any person, uh, George Washington to Barack Obama was perfect or made perfect decisions. Um, yet we have this movement now trying to destroy a lot of the past. Uh, today we know who the villains are today. It's the two political parties that are entrenched, that have become very adept at attacking each other and very inept at addressing the issues of the day. And then that's the reporting sources, uh, people that should be able to report facts to us are instead not only very vocal partisans, but they're looking for ways to alarm and distract us. We'll share they've picked sides. They have indeed picked sides. You know, we we've had some contentious times in the nation, and I know that we've talked a lot about the role of black Americans in their absolutely horrible treatment during that time and look slavery. It was an international institution from the beginning of time. And the United States at its founding was no different. And, you know, if you even wind the clock back prior to the founding of the United States of America, the native American tribes, they enslaved, they tortured and they killed those people that weren't of their tribe. Right? And, and to look at too often, we talk about enslaving of another human being in an abstract. You know, there's been some really good movies made recently that begin, I think just begin to understand the horrors about ownership of a human being by another human being, you know, controlling whether that human being is fed, housed, beaten, killed, have their spouse or their child sent away beaten or killed, you know, used as, you know, a sexual toy and the horror of that wasn't resolved by the civil war or by the 13th amendment. So, you know, think about it, you know, does anyone think that after the 13th amendment there was equality, you know, did a slave thing, wow, I'm glad that's over. Now. I'm equal with my former owner. And the two of us are going to go have a beer in town today because we're now equal, okay. That didn't happen. And the civil war didn't resolve the issue. And I think about some of the questions that were posed, think about this suppose that in 1787, you know, predating the civil by 90 years, a black slave was considered to be a three fifths of a person, right? That was because the North wanted to count all of the population for representation and taxation. And the South said, well, can't count as people because it's property and finally the horrid, but that was the decision made at the time. Three fifths. Think if that compromise had not been reached, there probably would not have been a United States of America. There likely would have been two separate countries. Now fast forward to 1860, suppose that South Carolina didn't succeed from the union followed by porous 10 more States, then what would have happened? How long would slavery have been a territorial phenomena in the United States? So here we are right now, 155 years past the end of the civil war and race issues are still raging on. And there's a possibility that an all out fight right now would still be boiling in the year 21, 75. And, and how did some of this come to be? So I like to think about the destruction of rogue regimes and none more rogue or more awful than Nazi Germany. And if you look at the way Lincoln addressed the defeat of the Confederacy and the emancipation of the slaves and the way that the allies dealt with Nazis and the way Germany dealt with Nazi is by way of example, the swastika, uh, or the crooked cross, uh, dates back over 7,000 years, it was appropriated by the Nazis, but today in Germany and many other European States, by the way, the public display of that Nazi symbol, including on the internet, prohibited by law and individuals violating those laws are subject to criminal prosecution. Now there are exceptions for art and that's some discussion, but post world war II Germany said, we are going to wipe out that symbol. Now, here we are in the United States, 155 years after the defeat of the Confederacy and were having defenders of the Confederate battle flag because Lincoln took a different tack. He said in 1865 or the end of the civil war, that both parties had deprecated war. One of them would rather make war than let the nation survive. And the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. But at the end of the war general, you licious grant allowed general Robert E. Lee to keep his sword grant saluted loudly as Lee departed. And after announcing the South's surrender at the white house, president Lincoln ordered the band to play Dixie. And of course in Lincoln's style, he said, you know, we've captured that. And we own that. And so now we're going to play that tune that was followed by Yankee doodle and other pro union songs. Now think if Lincoln had taken a different tack, how much longer would the war have gone on, on a gorilla basis? Perhaps? You know, it was over a month later before they caught up with Confederate president Jefferson Davis, he was in prison, but it was never tried for treason. And while Lincoln granted amnesty to all, but the most senior people in the Confederacy, it was president Andrew Johnson who gave a blanket amnesty on Christmas day in 1868. So the Confederate battle flag was left to be used. Um, the Confederate flag was the symbol of the state's rights, democratic party, commonly known as a Dixie Kratz, uh, that was in 1948. They were opposing civil rights platforms, uh, of that day. Uh, the university of Mississippi stopped using that flag in 1997. So we have this symbol that is still out there in our society, and it stood for make no mistake, the enslavement of black Americans. And then we have a period of 1,892 around 1950. We had statues erected, uh, not necessarily to honor the brave soldiers of the Confederacy, but we had them erected to promote the racism of the Confederacy. Uh, we had the Jim Crow era. All right. And if a place that I just learned about at Ferris state university, and we should post this on the website, the Jim Crow museum of racist memorabilia using objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice. So in my lifetime, this was occurring 1964, the civil rights act was the official death of Jim Crow. Yet it wasn't until 1967 in the loving versus Virginia Case that the Supreme court of the United States. So that bans on interracial marriage violate the fourth amendment. So we have these seeds that have been deeply planted. We have, while progress is being made, perhaps on one front that the symbols, the behaviors, the conscious thought patterns, the subconscious reactions are still very, very much alive. And we hope that we can eradicate them by the decisions that we make today, which will of course have a consequence in the future. And so when you see the kinds of things that have happened around the George Floyd killing, it's a lot easier to understand now, as I've said on earlier podcasts, that the police officer's job is extremely difficult. It's really not a very good design that in any given shift, that officer may have to be a marriage counselor, a mental health worker, a neighbor mediator, a code enforcer, and at literally any moment shift to warrior mode for a violent confrontation to confront a home invasion or rape or robbery and assault, a murder and more, or in a lot of cases, all of the above on any shift, right on any shift. So when you think about the extraordinary scope of that job, I think we could all agree. It's very difficult job to do, and that officer never knows which of those roles there's going to be at any particular incident while rich there in lies the problem too, because it appears that not everybody agrees on that varied and important role of the police officer. Well, I look, I, this is where I think that when I look at division and I look at unification and there's just been some recent polling, but I think it just really confirms common sense. Everyone wants fair policing, that there has to be an understanding of what a good police job is. And there needs to be Swift and sharp punishment for people who violate fair policing. And similarly that those exact same sentiments are reflected that no one wants to see the violence and the destruction that is going on today. And again, I asked the question and then what, so if today we have the violence, the property destruction wiping out of small businesses in cities all over the United States. And then what, and, you know, Brian, just as a sidebar, I've managed a lot of things and I've spoken to a lot of people that have managed a of things. And if anyone thinks that there can be a spontaneous act of civil disobedience in Germany and in Arkansas and in grand Rapids, Michigan with the same tools, the same tactics,
Speaker 2:The exact same messages on the same paper, the same font, what,
Speaker 3:Um, and that there's not coordination. Um, I'm not just, I wish we were on video. I'm just shaking my head,
Speaker 2:But there's also a perfect storm going here and not to diminish the civil unrest and the purposes for the civil unrest. But we have a lot of people with a ton of time on their hands because they're out of work. They've been told to stay home and they're getting paid. They're getting money dropped into their account by the government every week. And these kids mostly have nothing to do at night. So it's very, uh, convenient for lack of a better word to, Hey guys, what are we going to do tonight? All the bars are closed. There's really nothing to do. Let's go do this. I think there's an element of that in there.
Speaker 3:Well, that it is. And you mentioned academics and we look at this cheerleading and I'm not saying all academics, but you think about what cheering on the, you know, destruction of statues and businesses and so forth. And look, I believe some of those statues need to come down. I think that the Confederate battle flag needs to be retired. That kind of makes sense in this, in these times where it absolutely makes sense in these times, but where does it end? So leu Yale was a philanthropist who established, of course, Yale university in new Haven, Connecticut. Now I've been to new Haven. It's been some time, but the area surrounding new Haven is terrible poverty. The last census has the population of new Haven at 31.5% black or African American alone, 30.4% Hispanic or Latino, and 30.3% white alone. And I, as of 2017, a poverty rate of over 25 and a half percent. So in this Ivy league place, we have a university named after a man who was not only a slave owner, but was a slave trader. Now, does that mean we need to take down Yale university and, or change the name of Yale?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And throw on top of that. Yale's a$30 billion endowment sitting, right. Smack dab in the middle of a community with that kind of poverty. And you have another Tinder box, right?
Speaker 3:Well, you do. And this is where I look at the, uh, virtue signaling of, you know, taking down, you know, statue of a Christopher Columbus, uh, or Francis Scott Key as imperfect human beings. Again, applying that same question, what would happen next and what happened before those events that made them famous. And then the one that really sticks in my craw is that the national football league and their virtue signaling and their demonstrations in the halls of Congress. And what is the name of the football team that represents the district of Columbia, Washington, D C I'm not even gonna say it on the air, but this is not code for a potato. This is an absolute racist, derogatory name for the very native Americans. And doesn't it strike anyone as incongruous at least that this is what represents our nation's capital. So look tearing up small businesses. Isn't going to be helpful, uh, pulling down a statue, isn't going to help, you know, taking out Yale university. I suppose we could debate that. And, you know, if you really want to get down to it, the roots of the, uh, slavery and the defense of it, and the Jim Crow laws all emanated from the Democrat party yet, I don't hear people saying, we need to take that down. And, you know, like even liberal places like CNN, the building has a fence around it, uh, because the demonstrations, uh, the protesters slash rioters smashed windows, came in the lobby and, you know, really put people in fear for their lives a bit ironic given the, uh, way the CNN anchors and guests had lauded those same people for weeks
Speaker 2:Steeped in irony, not to be out done by a Sheryl Selby out in Olympia, Washington who supported the, the protest and supported the rioting until her house was vandalized. And then it became domestic terrorism and that she was really upset. Um, what was it last night or a couple of nights ago? A statue of Ulysses S grant was ripped down in San Francisco. And, uh, I think last week it was Mathias Baldwin, the famous abolitionists from, uh, Philadelphia, that statue was defaced. And it's, it's almost, uh, I think we need to be careful not to give the protestors and rioters and demonstrators a whole lot of credit for being that bright, that they're not even quite sure what they're defacing or what they're protesting. Um, I think that's an issue as well.
Speaker 3:Exactly. So this lets me kind of shift to where do we go next? Look, we know who the culprits are. The culprits are the dividers, the culprits are the, the history of mongers in the news. The culprits are the people with shifting morality, uh, depending on who's doing what
Speaker 2:I agree rich. And like you said, at the beginning of the podcast, where do we go from here? Uh, how do we rebuild this,
Speaker 3:The pillars to a just society? And there aren't many, but I'll hit on a couple of, you know, first let's talk about the criminal justice system. And on our website, there is a YouTube video. It's about an hour in length, but I'd like everyone to listen to that, watch it. If you would, uh, you'll hear the chief of police in the city of Detroit, James Craig, our mirror, Mike Dugan, and several of the leaders of various activist groups talking about what they're doing. It's a beautiful thing. It is quite frankly, and that, how do all these groups work together, communicate, and where are the lines drawn in Seattle? For example, a police precinct was given up and surrendered, same way in Minneapolis. Chief Craig made certain that everyone understood that would not happen and the community activist leadership supported him.
Speaker 2:And to be sure they were pointing out that those weren't by, by and large Detroit residents, Detroit residents have taken great pride in the last 25 years of working and coming together.
Speaker 3:Indeed. And he, and, uh, uh, chief Craig called out by name, the cities that people had come in from many of which were the surrounding suburbs. So owning the criminal justice framework as a protector of the public and of Fairplay where police officers must ascribe to a code of conduct or face consequences, but also that the lawlessness that would cause more violence or property damage. Look, there would be some discussion around the crime bill in 1994 and what that directed police and courts to do as far as addressing a crime problem.
Speaker 2:Well, right, rich. So you can't not look at that crime bill that was written in 1994, essentially by Joe Biden. It was certainly signed by president Clinton and sponsored by the democratic party to show that they too were tough on crime, but those were decisions that were made back then that have to be looked at.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And so again, that's one of those where people made decisions at that time. And then what happened next was a incarceration rate that boggled the mind and particularly among minority men. And if you look at the stats around the intact families and the incarceration, you can see the connect point there. Now the first step act that was recently passed is indeed I think appropriately named first step, but we have a long way to go in criminal justice and making sure that people have a security and that people are antisocial, that would harm other citizens are dealt with. Next pillar, you've got to look at is education. And Brian, I've spoken many times on this podcast about how, as we move to a knowledge economy, the value of a real education over a strong back is going to only continue. And it's the fundamentals, no matter what type of higher education a person might desire that K through 12 has got to be grounded in the basics, reading computation speaking. And I'd also offer in the world that we're in today, at least one language, other than English look in this hemisphere gotta be Spanish, worldwide, probably Mandarin, but those are those fundamental building blocks.
Speaker 2:And I'd add civics because we seem to have a huge lack of understanding of actually how our government works.
Speaker 3:So civics needs to be in there because if you look at the test for citizenship, for immigrants arriving that want to get their green card and then become citizens, they generally display more knowledge about how our government works. Then our own citizens who are running around with a high school diploma,
Speaker 2:Rich, that's dead on, right? Uh, it's shown time and time again, that, uh, folks that have come over from other countries to become citizens of the United States know more about our civics, our constitution, and our government than the folks who generally don't want them to come in, which is steeped in irony as well.
Speaker 3:Right? And that's where I get down to when people are exercising their right to protest. And for peaceable assembly, you say, all right, if you've you're now you're not doing peaceful assembly. What's next. And if you said, well, how would you create a just society? A lot of it would look like the constitution of the United States of America. And a lot of it would look like the bill of rights of the United States of America. But here's where we have a problem that education is delivered at a local level. And the inner city schools are graduating students without a lot of those basic skills. And they're monopolies. They are controlled by both administrations that are monopolies and by unions that are monopolies and the unions are protecting those that aren't teaching. We can't lose a generation of kids just because of the zip code they're born in. And we need to give them better opportunity through schools of choice, through voucher systems. The notion that we can wait until this bureaucracies improve, I think is a fallacy and we are spending the money, but we're not getting the education and it's it is criminal. Okay.
Speaker 2:So you're seeing some irony to then, and the power of the union, the teacher's union, and these cities has, um, held back any real progress to reform the education system. And you could argue the same might be true with law enforcement and the strength of the unions and the emitters in the inner city to improve that as well. Yet both of those unions support heavily the democratic party. Do you see any irony in that at all or no?
Speaker 3:Well, it's a terrible irony that money is leaving communities into unions who support largely parties that are continuing to support subpar education. It can't be reconciled, but make no mistake that it's not the people, it's the system. Good teachers often deliver great education in spite of what the board of education policy or in spite of what the union does.
Speaker 2:I agree. I think there's a majority of teachers that, uh, perform at that level.
Speaker 3:And I, I also believe that about police officers and look unions have given us a better society. They've given us the dignity of middle class incomes for working people. But even FDR said that it's difficult to reconcile a free society and a public workers union, because who are you negotiating with? But look, that's probably a broader topic for another day and rich, that's a great idea for an upcoming episode. So stay tuned to that one, right? That'd be great. And keep looking and keeping with my brand promise that there's something for everyone to dislike every episode. I think I've covered part of that waterfront right there. Let's move on to the other foundational need. And that's healthcare that healthcare we know is the underpinning of everything that goes on without good health. You can't be educated without good health. You can't perform in a job without good health. You're going to perhaps be drawing that first responder in for a medical emergency versus some of the other things they might be doing. And under health care, it also include mental health coverage. We now know statistically that the consumption of healthcare services is largely driven by what we call social determinants of health now that not withstanding genetics, but social determinants of health, the density of the population one lives in the, a number of times a person moves, whether they have nutritious food and sanitation and the like I, and I've spoken about healthcare. Any number of times, we've had a couple of guests on and Nate Kaufman and Brian Peters, our healthcare system needs to become actually a system where we are able to address everything from preventive care and mental health issues to pandemics and everything in between without all of the stress it creates in all sectors of the economy period. So criminal justice education healthcare next pillar has gotta be economic opportunity. And this is where again, our government policies need to be about creating jobs that are onshore here. And that acknowledge that we together as Americans are competing with other countries around the world, what we experienced in the post world war two time where United States of America had the only modern factories in the world. We had consumers with money in their pocket from working and the fact that there was rationing during the war that carried us to the eighties. And since that time, there has been one competitor after another, while we have not addressed the education, healthcare infrastructure, uh, criminal justice system, we've lived off the bounty that, uh, was created. Other countries are trying to get lifted to that middle-class standard of living. We need to appreciate that. That's where the competition is. Make sure there's fair trade deals and make sure that entrepreneurs on our shores have every chance to create good paying jobs for this economy. And the next one, and look a final word on security. What comes next? I've actually heard people advocating no police departments. You know, I just can't imagine that. And look, I am just absolutely indifferent to the race, the gender, the age, the sexual orientation, sexual identity of any law enforcement, chief, or law enforcement officer with the proviso that they play by one set of rules. And those that abuse it, you know, whether initiating or in retribution are going to be punished for that. And I agree with that rich, and I think you'd find that to be true in any civilized society. Even one is divided as our society is now we're going to find out because we've got a couple of places where that security's not, not in place. And again, let's answer the question are no police departments then what? So Brian look just to wrap up today. We know it's not going to the political parties that lead us out of this. It's not going to be reporting organizations that say, Hey, here's a set of facts here. And here's a set of facts there. It's going to be us as individuals and it's going to be us. And if I could be, I don't know what the right word is it, but we have to, as individuals look at our fellow citizens, all of humankind with love and with empathy and with the quality, because love does indeed conquer all. It's the only thing taken to its then what extreme that ends at a good place. And so just as you know, I really love quotes by Abraham Lincoln. And he says this with malice toward none, with charity, for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds to care for those who have borne the battle and for the widow and the orphan to all which may achieve and cherish just, and a lasting peace among ourselves. Our country faces similar national division today and with God's guidance and with the immortals honesty and perseverance, a binding up of these nations wounds is a distinct reality. We can make it happen if we meet each other on a common bridge to a better place to the future. Brian, thanks for letting me go off today. Um, on this, this is rich, healthy signing off
Speaker 2:The common bridge. You have been listening to Richard healthy's common bridge podcast recording, and postproduction provided by stunt three. Multimedia. All rights are reserved by Richard helpy for more information, visit Richard[inaudible] dot com.