Episode 135 — Power, Money, Control and the Cabal Embedded in Coeur d’Alene w/ Paul Banducci

[0:00:00] Good evening, everybody, and welcome to The Backlash. I'm your host, David J. Reilly. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Got a big show for you. Got a lot of interesting stuff about North Idaho politics we're going to be getting into with a really great guest. But before we get into all of that, you need to make sure that you like this video. Smash the follow button, smash the like button, and make sure that you follow us on all of our accounts. We're on X at Real Backlash. Of course, our website, thebacklash.net. [0:00:28] You can support the show on subscribestar.com slash thebacklash, [0:00:33] patreon.com slash thebacklash. [0:00:35] You can always send in superchats at thebacklash.net slash superchat, [0:00:39] or you can send in a Rumble rant over here on our Rumble channel, [0:00:44] Backlash Podcast, our YouTube channel, The Real Backlash. [0:00:49] You can find all of our platforms at thebacklash.net slash subscribe. 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[0:02:03] And if you are, like me, worried about the federal government spending our money quicker than they can print it, [0:02:09] you might want to sign up at atlasbullion.com slash Backlash and start stacking precious metals the easy way. [0:02:15] Gold and silver subscriptions that will help you preserve your wealth. [0:02:20] even though the government is doing everything they can, it seems, to make our dollar worth [0:02:26] nothing. So anyway, you know, we had an interesting guest on last week. Maybe this is starting like a [0:02:34] little bit of a series here on the backlash. Wayne Hoffman, you know, the founder of the [0:02:38] Idaho Freedom Foundation. He's been a real force here in Idaho. Of course, he's not from here, [0:02:44] but that's kind of how it goes. You know, 64% of the county that we live in, at least that I live [0:02:49] in Kootenai County here in North Idaho, 64% are born out of state. They're not from here. They [0:02:55] didn't grow up here. Most of them are baby boomers that have retired and moved up here, [0:03:00] inflating the housing, causing a lot of congestion, and also bringing with them a lot of [0:03:06] divisive political ideologies, myself included, but I didn't come from California. But anyway, [0:03:14] you know, this is, I think, we're getting to a point where we need to start being able to talk [0:03:19] about a lot of this stuff and start formulating a way to work together to move forward. Neighbors, [0:03:26] you know, working together, talking together, generating consensus outside of the government [0:03:29] system. And today we have a really interesting guest on the show who has been very involved in [0:03:37] building a kind of parallel social system in his own way, but also having direct, I guess, [0:03:46] how would you how would you even describe it you've been involved directly with some of the [0:03:52] evil forces uh that have been involved in making north idaho as gay as humanly possible [0:03:57] but of course we're pushing back against that our guest today is none other than paul banducci [0:04:03] paul how are you uh great to be here dave i'm doing all right it's a glorious day outside it [0:04:08] is it is paul i'm just giving the plug up front uh paul runs a rival podcast no i'm kidding it's [0:04:16] called the No ID Show. It is a local political type podcast covering the happenings in North [0:04:25] Idaho, deconstructing mainstream presentations of panhandled politics. So thank you so much for [0:04:30] joining us. And of course, there's a lot more to you than that. You're also a very successful [0:04:34] entrepreneur, businessman. You're like semi-retired now. I'm a has-been. I was a successful businessman. [0:04:42] man. Real quick though, back to the show. I do want to give a big shout out to Scott Moskowitz, [0:04:47] who is my partner in pseudo crime, if you will. And actually he's really the primary producer of [0:04:53] it. Like he pushes the levers. I show up and give the color commentary. So the show cannot happen [0:04:57] without Scott. And I love the man. So I got to make sure everybody knows it's Scott who's really [0:05:02] putting this thing on. I just get invited to say incendiary things. That's awesome. Yeah. You know, [0:05:08] So it's one of those things where I just like as a podcaster and like as somebody that like I'm friends with all these, like if I were to listen to all of my friends' podcasts, I would just literally never have a moment to myself. [0:05:20] I do feel bad about that, but it's just like the list is just, it's way too long. [0:05:24] Oh, yeah. [0:05:25] Everybody's got one. [0:05:25] In fact, when Scott came to me with the idea for our podcast, I said exactly that. [0:05:30] I was like, I don't get it, man. [0:05:31] I don't listen to podcasts. [0:05:33] First thing I said is that I am not a podcast guy. [0:05:35] I don't look, I don't watch them. [0:05:37] I don't listen to them. [0:05:37] know anything about them. And Scott goes, that's okay. I do. I did it for a living for 10 years. [0:05:41] I was like, oh, okay. Well, what do you need me for? And he goes, well, you know things, [0:05:46] you say things, you, you, you know what's going on around here. And I was like, well, [0:05:49] I guess that's true. And he goes, and you have a voice. I said, all right, sure. So you want me [0:05:53] to show up and talk about things? I know how to talk about things. I'm in. Nice. But to your point, [0:05:58] yeah, it's, I still don't listen to podcasts. I don't watch them. I don't listen to them. That's [0:06:02] not to turn anybody else off to them. It's just, uh, there's a lot of them. Well, you know, I think [0:06:06] that there's a um you know there's different reasons to watch podcasts right like one of them [0:06:12] is obviously entertainment there's just a lot of people that like listen to podcasts for [0:06:15] entertainment obviously information it's another big oh yeah and i'm not knocking them at all i [0:06:20] think they serve a great purpose in fact they've been a wonderful platform for all to go around [0:06:25] mainstream media yeah which has been critical especially over the last decade absolutely [0:06:30] critical it's why i think we still have a fighting chance yeah so i i think they're fantastic i just [0:06:35] They just haven't been a media form for me, except ironically now I'm a part of one. [0:06:39] And so it's out there and it's a it's a dang good time. [0:06:43] But I don't even really I listen to mine a little bit, but mainly to critique myself. [0:06:47] And that's about it. Nice. Nice. But I'm excited to be here. [0:06:49] Thank you for having me on. No, thank you for coming on. [0:06:51] I mean, one of the things that I wanted to kick this little conversation off with is is because of the migration. [0:06:58] Right. I mean, you've lived here all your life. [0:07:00] You were born just over the border in Washington State, Fairchild Air Force Base. [0:07:04] Your dad was a big military guy. Yeah. He was a career man. Yeah. And so you've grown up here, [0:07:10] you know, and it's crazy to me. It's like, I've been here for what, six going on seven years now. [0:07:16] And it's like, I'll drive down, you know, Prairie Ave or Lancaster Ave. And I'm just like, [0:07:22] I remember when this was a field. And then it's like, I've only been here for like six years. [0:07:28] What the hell is going on? The growth is just nonstop. [0:07:32] And the fabric of the community has really changed a lot. [0:07:35] So if you could just kind of give give a brief overview. [0:07:37] What was it like growing up in North Idaho? How has it changed? [0:07:43] I miss it. But just like everything else, there's good and bad. [0:07:48] There's two sides of it. Economically speaking, the growth has been a boon for the area. [0:07:53] it's pretty fantastic um man it's hard to be mad about that aspect of it as a as a business owner [0:08:00] the population growth certainly helped me i mean when i first opened up the bulldog pipe and cigar [0:08:05] in 2014 it was just a shop then in 2015 i expanded to a lounge and i had an idea of what my clientele [0:08:12] would be and it was not that at all i thought my clientele was going to be mainly people who [0:08:16] were from here who needed a place to go because there'd never been one and instead my clientele [0:08:20] was all the folks who touched ground just got here. [0:08:23] And because cigar culture is a big thing back, [0:08:25] particularly in California, [0:08:27] where the vast majority of people tend to be from, [0:08:29] not exclusively, but the vast majority, [0:08:32] first thing they do is look up where to go. [0:08:34] So that became my clientele very quickly. [0:08:36] I didn't expect that, but it was a boon for us. [0:08:39] You know, the development, [0:08:41] that's the thing you hear the most about [0:08:42] is losing the prairie and houses everywhere. [0:08:45] And that, it does feel that way for sure. [0:08:47] I mean, to your point, [0:08:48] there's intersections that are four-way stoplights that growing up here were nothing but a two-way [0:08:53] stop sign for years and years and years places where actually just south of here is where i grew [0:08:57] up where kathleen meets atlas the neighborhood stonehenge i grew up in that neighborhood just [0:09:02] right there and just north of there i used to be able to play paintball ride dirt bikes hunt grouse [0:09:08] and we had permission from the property owners and as long as we didn't hurt anything [0:09:12] it was our the world was our oyster now it's all houses for rich out-of-towners [0:09:16] so give and take right pros and cons i try to look at it objectively and go well economically [0:09:24] it's been fantastic politically in some ways it actually has been a boon as well but you know [0:09:29] more houses less space that's kind of a bummer the housing market is definitely different yeah [0:09:33] here than it was growing up yeah much more expensive the demographics have definitely [0:09:37] changed you take the good with the bad yeah there's a lot there's a lot to unpack there so [0:09:42] I don't know how much time I have, but there's a lot to unpack. [0:09:45] We've got no end. [0:09:47] But, you know, this is one of those things, too, that I wanted to discuss a little bit, which is that, especially on like acts and different social media accounts, you know, you get these people that are just like, the Californians are absolutely ruining Idaho. [0:10:00] And I actually think that this is a little bit of a fallacy. [0:10:04] I think it's actually kind of fake, fake and gay a little bit insofar as when I meet people that are, you know, moving to the county that have just moved up here, like nine times out of 10, these are people coming from like Orange County, California, Huntington Beach. [0:10:19] and for the past decade really they have been engaged face to face with antifa so they have [0:10:27] radicalized they realize that you know when they said love is just love and like let everybody you [0:10:34] know live and let live whatever that was a trick actually because we let them do their little thing [0:10:40] and and then they just kept taking and taking and taking and now all of a sudden i have to [0:10:44] leave as a political refugee from california it doesn't even feel like the united states anymore [0:10:49] and then they come up to North Idaho and it's like, oh, this is what I remember America being. [0:10:54] Yeah. And generally they have the right political inclinations. The problem is that we've got a [0:11:00] bunch of like liars up here, you know, that'll come out and we'll dig into it. There's a really, [0:11:06] a particularly contentious race in Coeur d'Alene this year in legislative district three with [0:11:10] a nice lady named Krista Hazel. It was inevitable she was going to run. I'm actually surprised it [0:11:17] It took as long as it did. [0:11:18] It took her this long, yeah. [0:11:19] I'm shocked. [0:11:20] So it either means that she's bored with what she's been doing [0:11:23] or they finally decided to grasp for more power [0:11:27] because folks like her have been very happy with the power they've had so far [0:11:31] because they've had damn near monopolistic control, [0:11:34] at least in the city of Coeur d'Alene. [0:11:36] So to your point, it's been really interesting. [0:11:38] I would say there have been roughly three, maybe four waves of migration, if you will. [0:11:44] And the first wave, which was almost exclusively from California, [0:11:47] This was in the early 2000s. [0:11:49] And they came up, and they were actually fairly leftist, [0:11:52] and they fit right in with what I like to call the downtown cartel, [0:11:55] the Coeur d'Alene establishment, the Beautiful People's Club, [0:11:58] whatever you want to call it. [0:11:59] Basically the legacy families, the resort people, the realtors, [0:12:03] the mortgage brokers, the bankers. [0:12:05] The Coeur d'Alene cabal. [0:12:06] The Coeur d'Alene cabal. [0:12:07] I like cartels, but cabal works very well too. [0:12:10] There's an issue with cartels up here, actually. [0:12:12] El Norte, there's a little bit of that going on, [0:12:15] especially in Spokane. [0:12:17] Well, they run it like a cartel. [0:12:18] You step out of line and they'll kill you. [0:12:20] Maybe not literally, but metaphorically for sure. [0:12:22] Maybe in the 70s and the 80s, actually, they were. [0:12:26] You know, Bob's 21 Club. [0:12:28] Did you hear about this? [0:12:28] Oh, yeah. [0:12:30] There's this place called Bob's 21 Club down in Post Falls, [0:12:33] and it's run by a guy named Bobby Wilhelm. [0:12:35] Please don't sue me. [0:12:36] But his grandfather, Louis Kreitzer, was a member of the mafia. [0:12:40] He was loosely affiliated with the Chicago outfit. [0:12:42] and they did like a renovation of one of their properties. [0:12:46] You know, they had the Contiki Lounge down by Stateline. [0:12:48] It's a strip club, Bob's 21 Club. [0:12:50] I can't remember which one it was, but they did like a renovation [0:12:52] and were like literally finding dead bodies in the walls. [0:12:57] North Idaho has a rich history. [0:13:01] The depths of which are hard to scrape. [0:13:04] It's actually kind of impressive and kind of cool, [0:13:06] depending on your perspective. [0:13:07] The whole Bob's 21 thing, that's a whole other rabbit trail we could go down. [0:13:11] That dude's found himself in some hot water over the years, too, for, I think, some very entertaining and fun reasons. [0:13:17] But it is fascinating how that first wave that came up actually was more in lockstep with the cartel. [0:13:24] And those who pushed back against that first wave were kind of told to shut up, actually. [0:13:29] In fact, I'm sure they're out there, if you Google searched deep enough into the archives of Coeur d'Alene Press, [0:13:35] where they actually ran editorials 20 some odd years ago saying, [0:13:38] hey, be cool to the people who are coming up because they help us economically [0:13:44] and the growth is good and yada, yada, yada. [0:13:46] Of course, the cartel was making all kinds of money with the developing [0:13:49] and the banking and the mortgage lending. [0:13:51] I mean, there's very few realtors who are not leftists [0:13:55] because that's the kind of industry that attracts those kinds of people. [0:13:58] So they were loving it, right? [0:13:59] They're all making their money. [0:13:59] Right. The second wave, which was in the mid 2010s and happened after the 07, 08, 09 bust, the second wave came up because property was so cheap everywhere, but it was particularly cheap here. And it was a great place to go for that. The third wave is the post COVID wave. And that is the wave that has been particularly more conservative, notably more conservative, because everybody saw what government really was and people either liked it or didn't like it. [0:14:28] So that's where you really have the folks who, and it wasn't just California, a lot of people from Seattle, a lot of people from Minnesota, a lot of people from Michigan, and actually a lot of people from Texas because Texas had been Californicated. [0:14:40] Yeah. [0:14:40] And a lot of Texans have gotten out and been like, yeah, Texas isn't what it used to be for me. [0:14:44] I got to go somewhere else. [0:14:45] And they've come here. [0:14:46] Yeah. [0:14:47] So it's been a very fascinating evolution over the three waves. [0:14:50] And the last of the three, the second one was somewhat conservative. [0:14:54] This third one's been very conservative. [0:14:56] Yes. [0:14:56] And they radicalize, so use the term radicalize, and I don't want to split hairs, but I'm gonna, because language matters. I would say it's more of a realization. They've been realized. They've seen all of it before. They know the playbook. So they come up here, they see the downtown cartel and the powers that be try to do the exact same thing, and they react to it. [0:15:13] Yes. Yeah. And, you know, when I say radicalize, I don't mean that. I guess it has like a negative connotation through the media. [0:15:21] They've they've associated this idea of like radicalism with all kinds of other isms and ideologies or violence or something like this. [0:15:27] But if you actually mean, if you look at the word radix, which is the root for the word radicalize, it means getting to the actual root of the problem. [0:15:36] So when I say if you get, you know, you've been radicalized, it's like, oh, okay, you are moving towards first principles and figuring out why we are so fucked. [0:15:46] Because, you know, my dad and I talk about this all the time. [0:15:51] It's this, like, idea of, like, you know, if you imagine a golf ball, you know, being off just a millimeter when you're playing golf. [0:15:59] The ball will hook or slice. [0:16:01] It'll go way off, way off. [0:16:03] and when it comes to religion and political ideologies, [0:16:09] a small mistake at the beginning leads to these massive errors in the end. [0:16:14] And, you know, like we're seeing the bathroom issues, the transgender issues. [0:16:17] Foundational values, that's what you're aiming at here, [0:16:19] is the moment foundational values move a little bit one way or the other, [0:16:23] then in 10, 20 years, one generation or less, you look up and go, [0:16:27] how the hell did we get here? [0:16:28] And that's kind of where we are right now. [0:16:30] Now, I wanted to add to it, you know, because this idea of these waves of migration, internal, essentially internal mass migration in North Idaho, this has been such a big part of the history up here. [0:16:43] starting at the very foundation of the state in 1890. We had a lot of WASP types that owned a [0:16:53] bunch of claims for mines, and they brought in a massive wave of Catholic, Italian, Irish, [0:17:00] and German immigrant labor to work in the mines. And that totally changed the face of North Idaho [0:17:08] forever, the way that that happened. And then, of course, when the workers started to get a little [0:17:14] upset, when the mine owners tried to cut their pay 50 cents a day, they went on strike. It got [0:17:18] violent. Things started blowing up. Silver Valley also has a very rich history. Kellogg, Wallace, [0:17:25] it's amazing. It's fascinating. It's so deep. And then there was another wave that happened [0:17:30] in the 1960s. There was a lot of riots going on, the Watts riots down in LA, in Southern [0:17:38] California. That drove a large wave of people up here. And again, in the 70s, in the 1990s, [0:17:45] you had, who was that? Rodney King. The Rodney King incident led a massive wave of people out. [0:17:53] And so it has been interesting to see how this has unfolded. This is, I think, a key part of [0:18:01] the story of North Idaho that gets missed. You know, a lot of people, they just chalk it up to [0:18:06] extremism or white nationalism or white supremacy, blah, blah, blah, whatever. [0:18:11] Well, ironically, even in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, California had a much, much larger contingent [0:18:16] of Aryan nation types than Idaho ever could have hoped to have. [0:18:20] It's crazy. [0:18:21] Not the way I want to phrase it, but we're so famous for the Butler stuff up in Hayden. [0:18:27] I mean, we're talking like 40 to 60 people at its height, and it lasted like 10 years [0:18:32] before they bankrupted themselves. [0:18:33] and the city of Coeur d'Alene and the people in charge pat themselves on the back about how they, [0:18:38] you know, how they took down the Aryan nation up here in Northland. [0:18:40] And yet still somehow we have the reputation for that, which is really not earned. [0:18:45] It's just a drum they like to beat. [0:18:47] But, you know, it's a two-edged sword. [0:18:50] On the one hand, it's kind of helpful, right, insofar as like, you know, you always see that map, right? [0:18:56] You see the map of the United States and it's like, you know, cowboys in Texas, Florida man in Florida, [0:19:02] and then in North Idaho, it's just Nazis. [0:19:04] Skinheads in North Idaho. [0:19:05] It's just like, okay, cool. [0:19:06] This is workable. [0:19:08] You know, we're not actually like that. [0:19:10] You come up here, it's one of the nicest places you could ever be. [0:19:13] But having that reputation, it does help kind of keep out some of the riffraff. [0:19:17] There were moments, I'll admit, that I was kind of gleeful that we had that reputation. [0:19:21] It was like, well, if it keeps certain people out, then you know what? [0:19:23] Yeah, don't come here. [0:19:24] Everybody's racist. [0:19:25] We hate everybody who doesn't look or act like us. [0:19:28] It's horrible. [0:19:28] Plus, it snows. [0:19:29] It snows 12 feet a year. [0:19:31] You know, it's freezing for eight months out of the year. [0:19:33] Just don't come here. [0:19:34] It's a terrible place. [0:19:35] But that advertising never really has worked. [0:19:37] And I guess when I said three waves, it really is more like five or six. [0:19:40] It's just three waves in my own lifetime. [0:19:42] Yes. [0:19:42] Like my family, both on my mom's side and my dad's side, came up in the 70s, both from California. [0:19:48] And it was because they saw what was going on down there and went, nah, we're out. [0:19:52] Also, there's way more opportunity up here. [0:19:54] So up they came. [0:19:55] So I would be essentially, I'd be first generation, I guess, Idaho myself. [0:20:02] Because my folks came up when they were kids and their parents brought them up. [0:20:05] So technically, I'm first gen. [0:20:07] Yeah, that makes sense. [0:20:08] So that's kind of what to think about. [0:20:09] Yeah. [0:20:10] And this part has never changed, even in the 70s, because my grandpa Larry, [0:20:14] one of the ones who came up and brought my mom and his family, this part has never changed. [0:20:20] Basically, once people arrive here, they turn around, they take a deep breath, [0:20:24] and they say, don't come here. [0:20:28] I'm like, I think that's been 50 years running now. [0:20:32] And that's been a joke amongst the people who have moved here [0:20:34] and the people who want to move here. [0:20:35] And, you know, people get here, turn around and go, no, no, no, no. [0:20:38] Idaho is full. [0:20:40] Man, I tell you what, the amount of time I have heard that sentiment [0:20:43] from people who aren't from here. [0:20:45] And I just go, shut up, shut up. [0:20:48] Like if anybody should scream about it, it's me. [0:20:51] But, you know, there's good and there's bad. [0:20:54] You get them both. [0:20:56] Now, there is something that I wanted to shoehorn in here, and I think we can. [0:21:00] Let me quick take a detour. [0:21:04] I did wind up posting one article here about this on my X, and you should be able to still find it. [0:21:12] And I kind of get into it a little bit. [0:21:14] And we mentioned this, right? [0:21:16] There was this big battle about the Aryan nations up here in the 1970s and 1980s. [0:21:23] And there were several groups that were involved in this fight, one of them being the Human Rights Education Institute or the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, which I wrote an article about. [0:21:37] And it's funny, actually, going back, I haven't looked at this in a long time. And of course, now we know that Noam Chomsky was a big Epstein guy, actually. [0:21:46] Shocker. What a shock. [0:21:47] Big shock, yeah, that the Human Rights Education Institute would have ties to people like him. [0:21:52] But so you had this group, the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, which was founded by a Catholic priest, Bill Wasmuth, who eventually left the priesthood and ran off with like a 17-year-old girl, moved to Seattle, ditched her for a 16-year-old before finding his way back here into Idaho. [0:22:12] I think southern Idaho is where he wound up dying in the early 2000s. [0:22:17] I think maybe like 2000, 2001. [0:22:19] I'd have to go take a look. [0:22:21] But so you had Bill Wasmuth. [0:22:22] Another person was, why am I only remembering her maiden name, Christy Westlake? [0:22:29] You know who I'm talking about. [0:22:31] Christy Wood. [0:22:32] You're thinking of Christy Wood? [0:22:33] Christy Wood, yeah. [0:22:34] Speaking of rich history. [0:22:36] Oh, man. [0:22:37] Skeletons in that closet. [0:22:38] We could be here for a full podcast just dissecting that one. [0:22:42] Yeah, was it Mix? [0:22:44] Something about the bathroom at Mix? [0:22:45] I don't know. [0:22:47] That just scratches the surface. [0:22:48] That's some inside baseball. [0:22:49] And so then you also have, you know, people like the FBI that were involved with this, which leads to this woman, Krista Hazel. [0:22:58] And if you watch the podcast on Monday with Justin Stamm, I did like a 15 minute rant about Krista Hazel, her dad, Wayne Maness, and his background with COINTELPRO, the 1968 DNC riots that he was all involved with. [0:23:13] And then comes up to North Idaho, starts this like weird like consulting business where he's doing private security for Philip Morris. [0:23:20] And he was at one point the largest employer of ex-FBI agents in the country. [0:23:27] And so that's interesting. [0:23:29] But, yeah, this woman, Krista Hazel, she's actually running for office now. [0:23:34] Here's a good picture of her. [0:23:36] She started this nonprofit several years ago. [0:23:39] I think it's a very flattering picture. [0:23:40] I think it is. [0:23:41] You know, she took it herself. [0:23:42] it's very soft lighting [0:23:45] but [0:23:47] Krista Hazel started this whole [0:23:49] non-profit called Save NIC [0:23:51] we have a local community college [0:23:53] up here in town called North Idaho College [0:23:55] and this is something [0:23:57] that you and your family has been deeply [0:23:59] involved with for a long time your dad [0:24:01] sat on the board of directors [0:24:03] of North Idaho College [0:24:04] and did battle against [0:24:06] heroic battle against [0:24:09] what he described as the North Idaho [0:24:11] deep state [0:24:12] if you could please give us a thumbnail sketch what what really happened at north idaho college [0:24:19] what was the battle man he would be the guy to do it way better justice than i could especially [0:24:23] with the with the details uh because i i lived a lot of it but i also tried to stay yeah out of it [0:24:29] as much as i could for a number of different reasons a i didn't think the old man needed my [0:24:33] help uh making things worse and uh b i had a business to run and i already i already make [0:24:40] made things hard for myself with my own political views, which, you know, basically, I'm an anarcho-capitalist, [0:24:46] so there's no government like no government. Leave people alone. You know, don't take people's stuff. [0:24:51] Don't hurt people. That's pretty much the mantra. Don't violate the NAP. And that's considered radical these days. [0:24:57] So, you know, I argue with conservatives as much or more than I do leftists. [0:25:01] But in a nutshell, my dad was there for 12 years, and the first four were pretty quiet because it was, [0:25:07] at times it was two versus three and a lot of the time it was one versus four [0:25:11] and the way it works in Coeur d'Alene is you're allowed to be the token conservative like if [0:25:15] there's one of you on the board the press will even they'll even write nice articles about how [0:25:18] you how you bring balance or how you bring a different perspective and they're okay with that [0:25:22] but the moment you have the majority well you are satan incarnate and they make it their mission to [0:25:28] dethrone you so to speak so the first four years were pretty quiet the next four years a lot less [0:25:34] So dad started making a little more noise, got another conservative board member. [0:25:39] So now it's two on three and things are a little more spicy. [0:25:42] And then where it really got interesting was those last four years where for a brief, brief moment, [0:25:47] there was a conservative majority on the board at NIC, three to two. [0:25:51] And for a brief moment, it was even four to one, really brief. [0:25:55] But then some things happened. [0:25:56] One of the board members moved away. [0:25:58] Another one got bullied off. [0:25:59] And then all of a sudden, it's like two to two and there's no quorum. [0:26:03] And so they pulled a really neat trick where they basically said, well, we don't have a quorum and we can't do anything. [0:26:08] The state of Idaho now must appoint board members. [0:26:11] So the state of Idaho, of course, and the people in charge of doing that were people in charge of the overarching community college education system. [0:26:18] And, of course, we know which way they're going to lean. [0:26:20] So they appointed a member of their choosing and the conservative majority lasted all of like two years. [0:26:25] But during that time, they made national headlines because they fought the president, the sitting president at the time, on the mask mandates and the vaccine mandates. [0:26:33] So NIC was one of the only colleges like in the country where you didn't have to be vaccinated or masked to be able to attend college. [0:26:40] Wild and crazy, right? [0:26:42] And the old man went and uncovered a bunch of essentially corruption is, I think, the right word. [0:26:47] There's a lot of left-hand, right-hand economics in academia and in these cartel-like institutions where the left hand just greases the right hand and vice versa. [0:26:58] They rubber stamp everything. [0:26:59] They spend your money. [0:27:00] They spend it on the projects they want. [0:27:02] The people that they know and love get the contracts, and everybody's happy. [0:27:06] But my old man went in there and shit in their cereal, and they weren't happy. [0:27:11] And then what was really interesting is they accused our family of being in bed with the developers. [0:27:15] this was the weirdest accusation that came out of all of it was that we wanted NIC ultimately to fail [0:27:21] so that we the Banduchis could then like redevelop it into something else. [0:27:28] And my dad and I are listening to this stuff. [0:27:30] I'm going like, we don't even know any developers. [0:27:32] We're not developers. [0:27:34] We don't know developers. [0:27:35] We don't even like realtors. [0:27:36] Like we have nothing to do with the banking system, the mortgage brokers, nothing. [0:27:39] We couldn't do it if we tried. [0:27:42] Unlike everybody else involved. [0:27:44] He was accusing us of that exact thing. [0:27:46] So ultimately they tried to tank the whole thing by threatening accreditation. [0:27:50] So that's where Christie Wood comes in. [0:27:52] When they're having arguments on the board, this is six or eight years ago now, [0:27:56] and the conservative majority is instituting policies that the rest of leftist academia doesn't like. [0:28:02] Well, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Christie Wood goes, [0:28:05] you know, you need to be careful or else the accreditation of the college might be at risk. [0:28:09] And nobody took it seriously at the time because everybody's like, [0:28:12] The college is being run fine. [0:28:13] There's nothing wrong here. [0:28:14] Well, it turns out the accreditation organization in Idaho, [0:28:19] well, Christy Wood is a member of the board. [0:28:22] She is? [0:28:22] Yeah. [0:28:23] Well, she was. [0:28:23] I didn't even know that. [0:28:25] That's the NWCCU? [0:28:26] Uh-huh. [0:28:27] She was on the board of that? [0:28:29] She was at a time, and she knew people who were on the board, [0:28:32] but her contingency and her people filed the complaints. [0:28:38] There were only two complaints ever filed against NIC [0:28:40] to threaten their accreditation, [0:28:41] And it was Christy Wood's people and organizations on which she sits. [0:28:46] Yes. [0:28:47] That filed the complaint. [0:28:48] This is we're looking at it on the screen right now. [0:28:50] This is from the same organization that launched the big battle against the arrogant nations and all of this back in the 1980s. [0:28:57] The Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. [0:29:00] They wrote up this letter in 2021 bitching about how people essentially they weren't forcing the mask mandates. [0:29:10] Yep. [0:29:10] is essentially what the entire thing boiled down to. [0:29:14] Also, the idea of eliminating tax-based diversity initiatives at North Idaho College. [0:29:20] Oh, no. [0:29:21] Those were the most public ones, but there was also that they were disagreeing on where and how a lot of money was being spent. [0:29:28] So, I mean, you know, they never met a dime they didn't like to spend. [0:29:31] And NIC is a taxpayer-funded entity. [0:29:34] Kootenai County, if you pay property taxes in Kootenai County, there's a line item for it. [0:29:38] Your property taxes go for Kootenai County. [0:29:40] And then the rest of it's made up with state grants, federal grants, and then, of course, student tuition. [0:29:45] But a huge chunk of it is, and it's not North Idaho, it's Kootenai County funding it. [0:29:50] So my dad gets in there and he's like, we are supposed to be stewards of this. [0:29:56] That's all. We're the board. We are stewards of the financial parts of this institution. [0:30:01] And he took that pledge very seriously. [0:30:03] He's like, I'm representing the taxpayers and the students. [0:30:05] Meanwhile, most of the board members in the past, now in the present, [0:30:10] and that he was fighting truly represent the staff and the faculty and academia as a whole. [0:30:16] And then they're people who get the contracts for what gets built and where the money goes. [0:30:21] So that's what was at odds. [0:30:23] One of the big fights was K-Tech. [0:30:25] My dad actually hugely supported all of that stuff. [0:30:28] And if you were to listen to them, you would think not. [0:30:30] You would think that was the opposite. [0:30:31] And that they did that, and that was their pet project. [0:30:33] It was actually my old man's. [0:30:34] He got the, him and Ron Nilsson got the ball rolling on that. [0:30:37] Ron, who ran Ground Force, a big equipment maker at the time, just down here in Post [0:30:42] Falls, for him, it was an excellent opportunity to be basically have NIC funnel usable people [0:30:48] his way for employees. [0:30:49] So for him, it was very pragmatic and utilitarian. [0:30:52] For my dad, it was being good stewards of the taxpayer. [0:30:55] Sure. [0:30:55] And providing skills that academia typically doesn't provide. [0:30:59] Yeah. [0:30:59] So lots of fights on that. [0:31:00] Lots of fights on, they always want to build another building or build a rec center. [0:31:04] That was another big fight. [0:31:05] They built a rec center and then found out that, oh, this costs twice what it should. [0:31:09] And then it's going to cost more money to maintain. [0:31:10] And now we have to raise tuition and taxes. [0:31:13] And my dad was like, I told you, I voted against this for all those reasons. [0:31:16] And the people, the students whose tuition went up to pay for this never got to enjoy it. [0:31:22] Right. [0:31:22] And just take that and extrapolate it times 100. [0:31:25] And that's how things work down there. [0:31:26] Or when they bought the Fort Ground Grill, for example. [0:31:28] I was literally just about to bring this up. [0:31:29] This was another big one. [0:31:30] So they buy foreground grill from former mayor, Steve Widmer, who is a very affluent and successful guy in real estate, of course. [0:31:39] And he was the mayor of Coeur d'Alene. [0:31:41] And you have this property that he had run for a while and managed to squeeze a million dollars out of it from NIC. [0:31:49] NIC paid that guy a million bucks to walk away, and it was worth maybe half. [0:31:53] But Widmer is a big friend to the majority and the leftists who are on the board. [0:31:58] Yes. [0:31:58] And so again, that's how the left-hand, right-hand stuff works. [0:32:02] The handshaking happens and all of a sudden NIC just blows a million bucks to add like [0:32:07] a half acre property and a decrepit building that's going to have to be remodeled. [0:32:12] The biggest, most valuable piece of that whole thing was the liquor license. [0:32:15] The liquor license, yeah. [0:32:16] Which wasn't attached to the building itself, it was attached to the business. [0:32:20] And so what? [0:32:21] What's NIC going to do with a liquor license that Steve sold off anyways? [0:32:24] Yeah. [0:32:25] So, you know, just take that and multiply it times 100, and that's the stuff that goes on. [0:32:29] Yeah. [0:32:29] So my dad got in there and went, this is bullshit. [0:32:31] You know, we're supposed to be protecting the taxpayer. [0:32:33] Anyways, Christy Wood does her part where the accreditation, board of accreditation gets involved. [0:32:40] And effectively what it is, is if you go into a house and the house is full of mold and squatters, [0:32:46] and you're like, we need to clean this shit up. [0:32:48] We got to clean this up. [0:32:48] And one of the squatters comes out of the house and goes, you're ruining everything. [0:32:52] You're destroying this thing. [0:32:53] while this squatter is holding a blowtorch to the building. [0:32:58] He's like, and then she lights it on fire [0:33:00] and then goes, you did this. [0:33:01] This is you. [0:33:02] You did this to us. [0:33:04] And you're killing an IC. [0:33:05] But she's the one who actually took the blowtorch to it. [0:33:08] And what's even crazier is that [0:33:10] throughout this entire thing, [0:33:12] the rhetoric behind it, [0:33:15] and it was all coordinated with the Coeur d'Alene press. [0:33:18] Oh, it was absolutely very well orchestrated. [0:33:20] It was very well orchestrated. [0:33:21] They were coming out talking about how these conservative trustees at North Idaho College are destroying the college. [0:33:27] They're ruining the town. [0:33:30] They're going to make it so that your tuition, like you're not going to be able to graduate from school. [0:33:35] The teachers, you're going to all be fired. [0:33:37] Your credits will be worthless. [0:33:38] Right. [0:33:39] And I see because it's going to lose accreditation. [0:33:41] Why is it going to lose accreditation? [0:33:42] Because these leftists filed the complaint in the first place. [0:33:44] Right. [0:33:45] Because they just weren't getting in their way for a couple of years. [0:33:47] Sure. [0:33:48] And what wound up happening is one of the teachers actually, or I think he was a teacher's assistant or an associate professor maybe, got so hopped up on all of the rhetoric surrounding this thing that he actually attacked your dad. [0:34:04] Yeah. [0:34:04] Yeah. [0:34:04] Went right into his office and threw a, it ultimately ended up being like some cleaning solution. [0:34:09] Luckily it was most, it was pretty harmless, but he just plastered the old man just head to toe with this stuff. [0:34:15] But more importantly, plastered my dad's office. [0:34:17] And my dad works in securities and wealth management. [0:34:19] So records are kind of important. [0:34:21] Your laptop, your computer, your paper records, that all. [0:34:24] It's very high value. [0:34:25] And it's also a security issue, too. [0:34:27] Yeah. [0:34:27] And he just plastered all of it. [0:34:30] But, of course, he was the hero. [0:34:32] This dude was the hero and spent almost no time in jail [0:34:35] and had almost no consequences laid on him at all. [0:34:37] In fact, they almost weren't going to prosecute the case. [0:34:39] The only reason they did was some political pressure that came from it. [0:34:42] And yeah, that was an interesting thing too. [0:34:45] In fact, there was a time where I was living off and on at my parents' house for about six years [0:34:51] because my business was down here. [0:34:53] But I live an hour and a half away. [0:34:54] So I'd come down, stay for three, four, five days in a shot, work, and then go home for three, four, five days [0:35:00] and work from home. [0:35:01] And there were a number of times where I'm actually like parking a block away from my parents' house [0:35:06] because we're wondering when somebody's going to come and slash the tires of our cars in the parking lot [0:35:11] or do who knows what to the house. [0:35:13] It was really interesting. [0:35:15] Yeah. [0:35:15] I remember one time your old man got doxxed on the internet. [0:35:21] They went ahead and posted his home address for everybody to see. [0:35:25] There was also, let me see if I can find it. [0:35:28] That was one of those moments where I parked a block away for about three weeks. [0:35:31] Right. [0:35:32] There was also this, let me see, is it? [0:35:36] By the way, if you haven't, if you're not following the Idaho Tribune [0:35:39] or if you're not going on that website. [0:35:40] There's a lot of really good stuff. [0:35:43] Oh, I guess this, was this it? [0:35:44] No, no, no. [0:35:45] No, it wasn't that. [0:35:46] There was this meeting that they had. [0:35:48] I'm trying to find the article. [0:35:50] There was this meeting that they had [0:35:51] with all of the people involved with NIC [0:35:53] where they got together to dox all of the trustees. [0:35:59] Your dad, let me see. [0:36:01] Here it is. [0:36:02] No, no, no. [0:36:03] So if memory serves, that came about. [0:36:05] This is it. [0:36:06] Because there was an issue with where some of the trustees, their residents, their legal residents was, [0:36:13] versus whether or not they could be actual legal valid trustees because of where their districts were versus where they resided. [0:36:19] No, this wasn't even that. [0:36:20] Oh, this wasn't even that. [0:36:20] No, no, no, no, no. [0:36:21] That was totally different. [0:36:22] Some of the issues about where people lived came about because actually one of the leftist trustees had been doing it for like 10 years. [0:36:28] Yeah. [0:36:29] Primary residents in Arizona, I think it was. [0:36:31] Yes. [0:36:31] Barely spent any time up here. [0:36:33] Yes. [0:36:33] But instead they made bones about it with Michael Barnes, who had residents up here. [0:36:39] Yes. [0:36:39] But it wasn't, it was like, you know, 500 feet off from the district line or something like that. [0:36:43] The trustee, by the way, that was living in Arizona, who was doing this whole thing, he was the lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center. [0:36:53] So like whenever a out of state attorney is attempting to like function in Idaho, if they're not licensed in Idaho or they haven't passed the Idaho bar or whatever, they have to retain local counsel and operate through that local lawyer. [0:37:05] So this guy that was on the board that was living in Arizona, he was the lawyer that worked with Morris Dees, the pedophile from the Southern Poverty Law Center. [0:37:15] Oh, that tracks. That was Ken Howard, I think. [0:37:17] Ken Howard. That's right. That was his name. [0:37:19] and uh and so it's just like one of those things where like this does not surprise me in the [0:37:23] slightest and then when you really are digging into it and you notice the ties between christy [0:37:28] wood christa hazel and the rest of these people tony stewart oh man tony stewart he's a special [0:37:32] one big professor who was apparently involved in some sort of relationship with the kid playing [0:37:37] the trombone back in the day i don't know uh that's about all that i'll say about that like [0:37:42] i said i don't really want to get sued um but a lot of dude there's a lot of story like glenn [0:37:48] Walker. I don't know if you remember Glenn. He was our Kootenai County prosecutor back in the 80s [0:37:53] and 90s. And Glenn Walker was like, I guess he had some case. It was a divorce case. And he was [0:38:02] representing the guy in the case. But they had they had a daughter, like a 14 or 15 year old [0:38:08] daughter. And so they sent the daughter to live with Glenn Walker, their lawyer, who was also the [0:38:16] Kootenai County prosecutor who was then bringing this girl, this like 14 and 15 year old girl [0:38:22] around to like parties in the county where they were presenting as though they were in some sort [0:38:29] of relationship. And Glenn actually got charges filed against him for indecent stuff with kids. [0:38:39] I have no idea. That all got thrown out. Obviously, he was never prosecuted for that, [0:38:43] but that was a big deal. [0:38:46] I've got it in my archive, okay? [0:38:48] I'm going to, one of these days, okay, [0:38:50] I'm going to write a book. [0:38:51] I have gone through the newspapers up here [0:38:54] for like 50 years. [0:38:57] I've got all of this stuff screenshotted and organized. [0:38:59] I just need to take the time to assemble it all [0:39:03] into a book because it's just crazy. [0:39:04] It runs deep. [0:39:05] It runs deep and it's been decades and decades. [0:39:07] And the more you dig, the more you find. [0:39:10] It's incredible. [0:39:11] And everybody is connected. [0:39:12] Yes. [0:39:13] It's pretty wild. [0:39:14] It's the stuff that people go, oh, put on your tinfoil hat. [0:39:16] But it's happening in real time here, and it has for decades. [0:39:20] So where my dad took so much flack is because he was over the target. [0:39:24] I mean, that's what they say, right? [0:39:25] You take the most flack when you're over the target. [0:39:27] Well, he was starting to dismantle aspects of the institution there that were corrupt and awful aspects of the institution. [0:39:34] And, you know, you're getting close. [0:39:35] They circled the wagons, and, man, they were brutal. [0:39:39] And so, yeah, that was at the end. [0:39:42] They pushed a hell of a narrative to all in lockstep. [0:39:45] So ultimately you got the campaign in 2024 that was the save NIC campaign. [0:39:49] So that's how it culminated in 2024 was they pushed a narrative for years that the conservative board had ruined NIC and was going to ruin NIC even more. [0:39:58] And we needed to save NIC. [0:40:01] So that's the campaign they won that they ran and they won. [0:40:03] Now now all five board members are exactly the people they want. [0:40:06] It's a total rubber stamp. [0:40:08] the president [0:40:09] the president who my dad [0:40:12] they tried to get rid of him because he was just a [0:40:14] cancer but he's back [0:40:15] so they're doing whatever they [0:40:17] I'm a veteran not a sucker [0:40:20] or loser vote for Kamala [0:40:22] that guy was a piece [0:40:24] of work which it blows my mind when you [0:40:26] say that it's all about the kids [0:40:28] but you're one of the people [0:40:30] suing the college for losing [0:40:32] your job but you lost your job [0:40:34] for very good reasons [0:40:35] technically it was not for cause because that was the [0:40:37] that was the way they could do it was just be like, Hey, [0:40:41] in the contract, it says we can get rid of you at this time. [0:40:43] And it doesn't have to be for cause. So they did. [0:40:45] And then he sues for millions. Yeah. So you've got, [0:40:48] and he's wasn't the only, there was another lawsuit against NIC. [0:40:51] So you basically have all these people who are screeching about how [0:40:55] conservatives are ruining the college, [0:40:56] but they themselves are the one burning it down. They're the ones, [0:40:59] they're the ones who filed the complaints for accreditation. [0:41:01] And they're the ones who are suing the college and putting fiscal strain on [0:41:05] the college, forcing the college to spend money to defend itself. And then all the while saying, [0:41:10] well, the conservatives are the reason this is all happening. It's a tactic that they do everywhere. [0:41:16] The arsonists are the fire department. It's just incredible. It's crazy. [0:41:20] I was going to say, this kind of brings me into this. I mentioned this on the show last Wednesday. [0:41:27] This newspaper that we have out here in North Idaho called the People's Pen, [0:41:32] And this popped up around what around COVID 2021 or something like that. [0:41:36] Right. Yeah. And, you know, they're one of the only newspapers that kind of takes a different track. [0:41:41] Physical newspapers as opposed to the Coeur d'Alene Press, which is run by Hagadon. [0:41:45] And they're don't even get me started. I need to do an entire podcast on the Coeur d'Alene Press. [0:41:51] You could do a whole series. You could do a series. Yeah. A document. [0:41:55] I don't know. But there was there's a write up in here that I thought was like really interesting. [0:42:00] And it was probably, I think, one of the most succinct kind of write-ups about the battle that we've been having here in Idaho for the past six years. [0:42:11] So let me read this to you. [0:42:13] I'll get your take on it. [0:42:14] In 2024, throughout Idaho, it was a never-before-seen escalation in the contest for the most fundamental grassroots role in local politics, the precinct committeeman. [0:42:23] The PC is essentially your neighborhood representative to your chosen political party. [0:42:26] Ideally, a precinct committeeman votes according to its area's best interests. [0:42:32] A PC is generally someone who gets party literature and information to its precinct's residents [0:42:37] and plays an active role in ascertaining and conveying their precinct's desires for the party, [0:42:42] which ultimately informs the state's party direction. [0:42:45] Long ignored by the average voter, the role of the precinct committeeman became ground zero [0:42:49] for Idaho's struggle within its Republican Party, primarily in Ada and Kootenai counties. [0:42:55] Liberty-minded conservatives took over the Idaho GOP between 2020 and 2024, and the empire has decided to strike back. [0:43:05] The formerly mainstream Republicans marshaled gobs of money to regain a party of which they had lost control in Kootenai County, [0:43:13] a splinter group who branded themselves as the, quote, North Idaho Republicans, [0:43:18] organized what they hoped would be a takeover of the influential and coveted Kootenai County Republican Central Committee. [0:43:24] They prevailed in 30 out of 73 contests, failing to gain a majority. [0:43:30] Two years later, and all the precinct seats are up for re-election, [0:43:34] and this year's race is shaping up to be even hotter than the last. [0:43:40] That's accurate. That sounds very accurate. [0:43:44] It's been kind of interesting to see, you know, especially at the national level. [0:43:48] We were talking about this before we went live. [0:43:50] If you're unaware, Grindr is set to have a White House Correspondents Dinner Party, you know, not exactly beating the allegations that the Republican Party is gay. [0:44:02] You showed me that and I was like, is this real life? [0:44:05] But yeah, no, it's happening. [0:44:09] What a time to be alive. [0:44:11] So what you have is a fundamental disagreement between what it is to be a Republican on top of a lot of Democrats infiltrating the Republican Party up here in Idaho. [0:44:24] Idaho has the reputation of being blood red. [0:44:27] It's really not, and it never has been. [0:44:29] I would argue that a solid 40% of the state is Democrat, truly. [0:44:33] Now, about 20% of that 40%, half or more, is now registered as Republicans. [0:44:40] And they run candidates. [0:44:41] They are now running for precinct committee positions because we have a close primary in Idaho. [0:44:47] And Idaho is still a majority conservative Republican state. [0:44:52] At least parts of it are. [0:44:53] This part of it still is. [0:44:54] It truly is. [0:44:56] But that's how they're doing it. [0:44:57] So they get in. [0:44:58] And because the average voter is fairly low information and fairly lazy. [0:45:02] and busy and whatever other excuse you want to conjure up. [0:45:05] So it becomes easy to just check the box with the R next to the name. [0:45:09] And they know that, so they've capitalized on it, [0:45:11] and they're trying really hard to capitalize on it. [0:45:13] The best way to do it now, as they've identified, [0:45:15] is, well, like you said with the term radical earlier, [0:45:19] the very foundational roots of it, [0:45:21] and that's the precinct committee men positions [0:45:23] because they get to decide who to endorse [0:45:27] from the official Republican Party platform, [0:45:30] or not platform, but from the official Republican Party perspective, they get to decide who to endorse. [0:45:36] Yes. [0:45:36] So if you have the official Republican Party endorsement, well, in Idaho, that's a big, big deal. [0:45:40] So that's where the fight is now. [0:45:42] This is what we're talking about. [0:45:44] Oh, no, this one. [0:45:45] If you ever see one of these floating around North Idaho, this is what we're talking about. [0:45:50] They started that in 2020, the rating and vetting system and the endorsement cards. [0:45:57] And it worked like a charm. [0:45:58] I mean, I remember the first two or three elections. It was like a total blowout, like 100 percent victories. [0:46:04] People were just they didn't understand what had happened. [0:46:07] And it's like, oh, the Republican Party grew a pair of balls and started, you know, working in the primaries. [0:46:13] Because there's a lot of these like weak, moderate, liberal Republican types that are like, oh, we shouldn't get involved in the party primary. [0:46:20] And it's like, well, then what good are you? [0:46:22] I would say one of the most paramount parts of being and having that institution is this exact thing. [0:46:33] So it's been interesting to watch how it's developed. [0:46:36] And the establishment has had the power for a long time. [0:46:38] We just only—I say we. [0:46:40] I mean, technically, again, I'm not a conservative. [0:46:42] I lean that way. [0:46:43] It's only been in the last eight years, four, five, six, eight years, that this has really popped off. [0:46:48] And it's been extremely effective. [0:46:49] So now the other side is trying to infiltrate. [0:46:52] Yeah. And they're also being effective with it. They have a lot of money. They have a lot of power. They have the press. They have the AP network at their disposal, the press at their disposal. Yeah. It's Mother Jones. Mother. Oh, man. And they paint themselves as the underdogs and they paint themselves as the good guys. And every campaign they run now is save X. Yes. Save A, B or C. It's save this. Save the libraries. Yes. Save NIC. Save our schools. Yeah. It's all a bunch of malarkey. And anytime conservatives win, it's a takeover. [0:47:21] anytime they win [0:47:23] it's a common sense has been [0:47:25] restored. Restoration like oh [0:47:27] the status quo is back we're happy [0:47:29] now it's okay [0:47:30] it's very disingenuous that's my beef with it [0:47:33] so I'll say this [0:47:35] anytime anywhere like [0:47:37] if you're a democrat okay [0:47:38] we're going to disagree we're going to disagree on [0:47:41] a lot but at least come out as what you are [0:47:43] stop lying about [0:47:46] it and so that's I think the biggest [0:47:47] at least my issue and a lot of people's issue [0:47:49] is for the love of God, [0:47:51] just re-register like you should as a Democrat, [0:47:53] run in the Democrat primaries, [0:47:55] post a Democrat candidate against a Republican candidate, [0:47:58] and 40% of Idaho definitely leans Democrat. [0:48:01] Yeah. [0:48:01] Just be honest about it. [0:48:03] I was going to say, [0:48:03] be genuine about it. [0:48:04] There's distinctions too, [0:48:05] even within the Democrats. [0:48:06] I mean, there's definitely like [0:48:07] the Democratic Socialist type wing. [0:48:09] I think they're actually running [0:48:10] a transgender candidate for governor this year. [0:48:13] When are they not? [0:48:14] I don't know. [0:48:15] I don't know. [0:48:16] They're always doing something goofy. [0:48:17] Remember David Roth? [0:48:18] He was constantly running him, this weird gay guy that has adopted brown kids. [0:48:23] It's just like, what the? [0:48:25] What are we doing? [0:48:26] Anyway, but yeah, it's just incredible. [0:48:30] I actually had the chance to sit down and talk with one of these lefties. [0:48:35] There was an article that came out called, Who the Fuck Are These Men? [0:48:39] Pardon the French. [0:48:40] That's the title of the article, okay? [0:48:42] Mother Jones needs to do better. [0:48:44] I really love the juxtaposition of the Ku Klux Klan member with the rifle. [0:48:48] and then the Confederate flag as well with, oh my gosh, with Norris [0:48:54] and a couple of these other fellows dealing with protest. [0:48:58] Yeah, no, that's, it's cunning. [0:49:01] It's cunning, it's clever. [0:49:02] They know what they're doing. [0:49:03] I mean, wow, look at that. [0:49:04] It's, I will give it to these guys. [0:49:07] They put on a master class in how to control the narrative. [0:49:12] Yes. [0:49:12] Dictate it and get it out there in a very orchestrated, coordinated way. [0:49:16] It's impressive. [0:49:16] Now, the one thing that I'm really upset about is they gave me an opportunity because I was featured prominently in this particular article. [0:49:24] And they gave me an opportunity. [0:49:25] They texted me and said, hey, you know, we're going to do photo shoots for everybody that we interviewed. [0:49:29] You want to come out and we'll take a professional photo of you? [0:49:32] And I was like, I don't think so. [0:49:36] No, no, no, no, no. [0:49:37] I don't think so. [0:49:38] But it's like, you know, then you come in here and you start seeing some of these photos. [0:49:43] This is a woman named Megan Dardis-Kunz who lives up here, and she's like a therapist or something. [0:49:50] And then you got Krista Hazel, this woman that we've been talking about. [0:49:53] You know, she's one of these ones that stole a bunch of money from, where was it, TJ Maxx or something? [0:50:01] You heard about this, right? [0:50:02] No. [0:50:03] You ever see this? [0:50:03] No, I don't have the dish on this. [0:50:05] This is a fun little piece that I pulled out, and it caused quite a stir when I released it back in July of 2025. [0:50:13] Krista Maness, on or about the dates of March 26, 1992, in the county of Kootenai, [0:50:18] did with the intent to appropriate to herself certain property of another to wit approximately $293.83 in U.S. currency from J.C. Penney Company of Coeur d'Alene. [0:50:32] And I talked about this. [0:50:33] But adjusted for inflation, that's like $1,500. [0:50:35] No, no, no, it's a lot more than that, actually. [0:50:37] I ran the calculations on it. [0:50:38] And what's crazy is that it's like here she is, this woman who is now running for state representative here in North Idaho. [0:50:47] She steals this money, gets her FBI agent dad to lean on local law enforcement and Christy Wood, by the way, who was the arresting officer. [0:50:56] And that's if you don't if you don't notice this, Christy Westlake. Right. [0:50:59] She is the cop that made the arrest. You know, that's Christy Wood. Her name changed. [0:51:04] so she goes from like arresting this woman to being like best friends with her it's it's just [0:51:11] unbelievable and and so uh she steals the money she gets charged and then daddy makes all of it [0:51:19] go away right she she like does like 10 hours of community service on a what should have been a [0:51:25] felony and then less than a month later her dad wayne manis launches this massive assault on randy [0:51:32] Weaver for having a shotgun that was a little too short, killing his wife, killing his son, [0:51:39] murdering his dog. Look over here. Yeah, exactly. It's amazing how that stuff works. It's just, [0:51:44] it's, it's unbelievable. The, uh, and, and I think that a lot of the stuff also like not to, [0:51:49] to keep bringing it up or whatever, but with the area nation, there was a, there was a large [0:51:53] mafia president, uh, mafia presence here in North Idaho ever since the beginning. Our, our, um, [0:52:00] our prohibition agent in 1926 was al capone's older brother james vincenzo capone so you've got [0:52:09] a guy from the chicago outfit bus making all of these alcohol busts in the county [0:52:14] ensuring that the chicago product makes its way to seattle right it's like huh i wonder if those [0:52:21] networks maybe they stayed and maybe they grew and developed and that this coeur d'alene cabal [0:52:26] grew out of that. [0:52:28] Maybe not, but even if not, [0:52:30] then it just is still, again, [0:52:31] from my perspective, [0:52:32] it's a great illustration [0:52:33] of just how government works. [0:52:36] It's like, government doesn't, [0:52:38] they're not against gambling. [0:52:39] They're not against alcohol. [0:52:40] They're just against competition. [0:52:42] Right. [0:52:42] Government's not against crime [0:52:43] as long as they're the ones [0:52:44] committing the crimes. [0:52:45] Right. [0:52:45] It's fascinating. [0:52:47] Yeah. [0:52:48] I got to say it real quick [0:52:50] before I forget, [0:52:51] because somebody's going to say [0:52:52] something at some point, [0:52:53] but the reason why we both [0:52:54] look the same today [0:52:57] because I called Dave up [0:53:02] and asked him what he was going to wear. [0:53:03] No, I'm kidding. [0:53:04] I put this on. [0:53:05] I roll up like this [0:53:06] and Dave's like, [0:53:06] oh, you're wearing red flannel? [0:53:08] I have red flannel. [0:53:08] It's the North Idaho uniform, right? [0:53:11] I guess. [0:53:11] See, I'm from here. [0:53:13] My flannel is not ironic. [0:53:14] My work boots have actually been worked in. [0:53:16] I woke up today and I was like, [0:53:18] oh, it's spring in Idaho. [0:53:19] I don't want to wear a t-shirt [0:53:20] because it could change 10 degrees, [0:53:22] but I don't want to wear a jacket. [0:53:22] I have 18 different flannels in my closet. [0:53:25] I'm going to wear one. [0:53:27] There were black shirts in Italy. [0:53:30] I've been wearing flannel since before flannel was cool. [0:53:33] There were black shirts in Italy. [0:53:35] There were brown shirts in Germany. [0:53:37] There were silver shirts in Spokane. [0:53:38] But in North Idaho, it's the red flannel. [0:53:42] Apparently, I guess. [0:53:43] I didn't know that my choice of wardrobe was also racist. [0:53:47] I guess I can't win. [0:53:50] Everything is racist. [0:53:51] Damn. [0:53:51] Now, where do you see? So with all of this, right, you've got these different factions. [0:53:57] You've got the kind of Tea Party crowd that, you know, I would say is grown into the establishment, which is a good establishment in the Republican Party. [0:54:08] Brent Regan, these types of people, you know, I'm thinking of Elaine Price and some of these other people that have been involved. [0:54:17] That all grew out of like the Tea Party. [0:54:19] Then you've got your Coeur d'Alene Cabal, the Christy Woods, the Krista Hazels, the Steve Winmers, Sandy Bloom, Jack Riggs. [0:54:28] Yeah, Peter Riggs, Jack Riggs, Sandy Patano, the Meyer family, anybody connected with Hagadon. [0:54:35] The list goes on and on. [0:54:37] That's the North Idaho Republicans. [0:54:39] There's a couple of other factions as well. [0:54:42] Candlelight Church is running their own faction. [0:54:44] and things are just getting extremely... [0:54:49] Well, that's a whole interesting conversation all on its own, actually. [0:54:52] Well, tell me about it. [0:54:53] Well, that's very recent. [0:54:54] A very recent one. [0:54:57] And it's actually kind of disappointing to see [0:55:00] because, again, I don't agree with a lot of candlelight stuff either. [0:55:03] But it's a very strange time right now [0:55:06] where the conservative contingent up here is also fractured. [0:55:10] And it might cost them elections for the next 10 or 20 years, starting with the 2026 primaries in the precinct committee. [0:55:18] That long, you think? [0:55:20] It's hard to get it back once you lose it. [0:55:23] I mean, you have to win it at the precinct. [0:55:25] Now, everybody understanding the dynamic of all this, you have to win it back at the precinct committee level. [0:55:29] And that's hard because everybody has an R next to their name in that race. [0:55:34] And they're all low-profile races. [0:55:36] You've got to walk door to door and make yourself known. [0:55:38] And again, the low information voter, it's hard to work with on that. [0:55:43] So I think we're gearing up to maybe see 20 years, 10, 20 years of NIR dominance if we're not careful. [0:55:52] Because now you essentially, the way I see it, because I'm kind of aloof, I'm kind of on top of it, I suppose. [0:55:57] I have a lot of experience with what I would refer to as the trad Catholic community. [0:56:02] And a lot of experience. [0:56:03] Why were you looking at me when you said that? [0:56:06] I'm kidding. [0:56:07] I mean, is it a secret on here? [0:56:08] No, no, no. [0:56:08] how many secrets are we dishing today? [0:56:11] No, well, because you're a part of that contingent. [0:56:13] And I have a lot of experience with that contingent. [0:56:16] First, it was through business, [0:56:17] because you guys were clients of mine, [0:56:19] 30% I'd serve my clients out. [0:56:21] Yeah, famously in the Catholic Church, [0:56:22] drinking and smoking is totally fine. [0:56:25] So speaking of, I'm actually going to, [0:56:27] you know, we've been bringing the cigar lounge vibe over here. [0:56:30] So I'm going to be pouring a little bit more Laphroaig. [0:56:33] I don't usually drink when I podcast, but why not? [0:56:36] I would join you if I could, trust me. [0:56:38] but we'll have a glass of wine in a little bit. [0:56:42] And then I get to know everybody, and a lot of you all become my friends, [0:56:45] and some of them even become kind of like my family, [0:56:47] and I have a lot of respect for the trad Catholic community. [0:56:49] Now, I'm a dirty Protestant, and so we disagree vehemently [0:56:53] on some very important and distinct things. [0:56:56] And on a number of occasions, I've been told I'm Catholic, [0:56:58] I just don't know it yet. [0:56:59] And every single time, I give the same answer, and I go, [0:57:01] you know, the minute you get rid of the Pope [0:57:03] and you get rid of all of that hierarchy, let's talk. [0:57:07] Let's talk. [0:57:08] But we'll unpack that maybe on another podcast. [0:57:12] Nobody gets between me and God, that's for sure. [0:57:16] So it's a weird fight, though, now with Candlelight Christian, [0:57:19] come being surprisingly Zionist. [0:57:22] I mean, in the true sense of the word, they are Zionists, [0:57:25] which isn't unique to the evangelical side of Christianity. [0:57:29] Sure. [0:57:30] Most of them are fairly Zionist. [0:57:31] They have this interpretation that American evangelicals [0:57:36] and the state of Israel somehow have something in common, [0:57:40] and it couldn't be further from the truth. [0:57:43] So that's where the big battle is right now. [0:57:45] That's what I'm seeing anyways, [0:57:46] between the trad Catholics and the evangelicals, [0:57:48] both of which are of the conservative part [0:57:51] of the Republican Party. [0:57:52] It's a big schism. [0:57:53] There's a lot of fighting going on. [0:57:54] I'm bummed to see it because I think it might cost us [0:57:56] two decades, a decade or two anyways. [0:57:58] And the NIR, man, they're licking their lips [0:57:59] because they act, again, credit to them. [0:58:02] They are in lockstep almost always. [0:58:04] They may disagree with each other, [0:58:05] but they do it behind closed doors. [0:58:06] They don't tear each other down. [0:58:08] And they push the same narrative at the same time. [0:58:12] And they're already hard to beat as it is [0:58:14] because they have the press, they have the money, [0:58:16] they have the backing, [0:58:17] they have establishment backing down in Boise too. [0:58:20] So that's what's going on, man, [0:58:23] with that aspect of up here. [0:58:24] I'm trying to see if I can actually bring this up. [0:58:27] I noticed a couple of days ago, [0:58:29] let me see, is there a way I can get to media? [0:58:32] Maybe not. [0:58:32] Yeah, here it is. [0:58:33] there was actually an interesting post. [0:58:37] I think I can, I think I can, yeah, this, this shouldn't dox anybody. [0:58:42] Very good. [0:58:43] So here, for example, and my OBS is not cooperating. [0:58:48] Hold on a minute, everybody. [0:58:51] We've been, I've been doing good on the technical difficulties until right now. [0:58:56] But okay, here we go. [0:58:57] This is actually one of these people that's very involved with Candlelight Christian Church. [0:59:04] I think she even has her own official email address, and that doxed everybody. [0:59:09] So I'm going to have to go through and make an edit. [0:59:11] Yeah, and everybody heard all about that because, of course— [0:59:14] Hold on a second. [0:59:16] I'm actually going to have to, like, edit that. [0:59:18] Hold on. [0:59:18] So this woman, Stephanie Fetzer, I think she actually has an official email address with Candlelight Christian Church. [0:59:28] She said recently that she likes some of the NIR affiliates. [0:59:36] So it's not just that it's like Zionists being involved in it. [0:59:40] No, it's not exclusively. [0:59:41] They're teaming up together with the establishment. [0:59:45] But I say that because I think that's the catalyst. [0:59:48] My understanding of it is that that's the big catalyst, [0:59:50] is what's driving the wedge. [0:59:52] And a candlelight Christian, again, from my understanding, [0:59:56] kind of started this fight. [0:59:58] Of course, the trad Catholics respond in kind as they know how to do, [1:00:03] and it's a pretty bitter fight right now. [1:00:05] I spent three years trying to talk with Paul. [1:00:11] I'd have lunch with him. [1:00:12] We went out to the local deli. [1:00:14] We'd have phone calls together. [1:00:15] and I'm like, Paul, why are we fighting? [1:00:18] You can have whatever weird eschatological idea [1:00:22] about the Middle East that you want to have. [1:00:25] I care about what happens in my backyard. [1:00:28] That's my number one priority. [1:00:30] It's an interesting hill to die on. [1:00:31] I don't understand it. [1:00:33] It's just a diametrically opposed priority [1:00:36] where it's like to them, [1:00:37] what happens in the Middle East is more important [1:00:40] than what happens in your own backyard. [1:00:43] I just don't understand that worldview. [1:00:45] At times it does feel that way. And I don't, frankly, I don't understand it either. You know, I, again, I find myself firmly in the middle. I'm definitely not what you would call an anti-Semite at all. In fact, my podcast, my podcast is with a Jew. Like he's a curly headed from California Jew and I love him to death. He's a good man. He's a, he's a great man and his family, they're great. I love him. And one of my, another good friend of mine, Russ Dunn, who's actually in one of those gnarly pictures for trying to help remove some of those protesters. [1:01:14] He was a Messianic Jew, and then he actually reverted back to being a full, regular, practicing Jew again. [1:01:20] Interesting. [1:01:21] And they're highly intelligent, godly men. [1:01:24] I'm fond of them very much. [1:01:25] And at the same time, I'm also very anti-Zionist, because our interests are not tethered with the state of Israel, plain and simple. [1:01:32] And there's no biblical basis for it either, and that's what the evangelicals get really hot under the collar about. [1:01:37] They think there's a biblical basis for it. [1:01:40] I don't see it. [1:01:41] So I'm firmly in the middle. [1:01:43] I'll argue with both sides. [1:01:44] Nice. And I think that just being able to have the argument and being able to talk is like so important. And I think it's really our only way out of this bitter fight is to find some way to be able to actually have some level of coherent dialogue about this instead of just foaming at the mouth and screaming. [1:02:03] It should be easy. I feel like it should be easy locally because a lot of the, again, this big issue that's causing, again, from my perspective, what I'm seeing, I'm sure there's always more and there's always more nuance and there's more I don't know and more I don't see. But the catalyst is this big issue we've just discussed. It doesn't impact us locally. So I don't understand why it's being fought over. It's not the hill to die on here. And pragmatically speaking, it's going to hand victory to people we don't want in power. [1:02:31] Right. Right. So it's a, it's a double negative. We're tearing ourselves apart. We're going to hand power off to the wrong folks. And, and it's an issue that doesn't even immediately impact us in any real meaningful way. Right. So what WTF, like, what are we doing? I don't know. [1:02:46] You know, I've got my theories. I'll save them. I'll keep them to myself for now. But, you know, one of these days. [1:02:53] It's just amazing because it's like, to me, it just seems like it's like every single person that I wind up seeing, like at that church, that's spouting whatever they are about how it's so important that we're at war with Iran and the Middle East. [1:03:07] It's like every single one of them comes from either a military background or a military industrial complex background. [1:03:16] Like one of the one of the big people that brought Pastor Paul Van Noy into town, he was like working for a lab that like made rockets. [1:03:26] And then he's like, oh, yeah. And Paul, like, you need to come start a church. [1:03:29] And then that church is like preaching about how we need to use these rockets over there in the Middle East. [1:03:33] please buy more rockets, you know, and then we've got like psyops people that are involved. You got [1:03:39] people from, you know, the infantry or the army or whatever that are getting up on stage and [1:03:43] they bring in people like Amir Sarfati, who was a major general in the IDF. And it's like, [1:03:49] to me, it seems like a very transparent military doctrine that is being disseminated as religion. [1:03:56] Well, what you have, I think, is a lot of, and I'm generalizing here, [1:04:00] a lot of evangelical boomers who are essentially neocons who fashion themselves as conservatives [1:04:08] like but they're not they're not act in in words change right they've been commandeered they've [1:04:14] been co-opted whatnot that's why i don't use the term liberal i use the term leftist because when [1:04:18] when liberal that to me is that's classical liberal classical liberalism is to back in the [1:04:23] day when it first came about in the 1600s 1500s that was to be anti-monarchist and that was enough [1:04:28] to get you hung, drawn, and quartered. [1:04:31] And it was a novel concept at the time. [1:04:32] To be conservative was to preserve centralized government [1:04:35] and authority and the monarchy. [1:04:37] So that's a term that, so it's leftist. [1:04:40] Conservative is another term that I think sticks a little better now, [1:04:44] but everybody up here uses it because it's the term du jour. [1:04:48] With Idaho having this blood-red reputation that really isn't true, [1:04:53] conservative is the buzzword that supposedly will get you elected [1:04:55] or supposedly means we're all on the same team. [1:04:57] but a lot of the conservatives especially evangelical boomers tend to be what i would [1:05:02] refer to as like neocon war hawks yeah and then you have like again like the trad catholics on [1:05:08] the other side who are not that they're a very different brand of conservative where um to them [1:05:16] if you know we're still very much maybe not gambling but like uh homosexuality and weed [1:05:21] are punishable by death, basically. [1:05:24] And I disagree. [1:05:26] I vehemently disagree with that take as well. [1:05:31] But both of them involve— [1:05:32] We also believe in hierarchy. [1:05:33] We believe in this subservience to the Pope. [1:05:37] And hierarchy, just so we're clear, [1:05:39] hierarchy is not a concept that libertarians or anarchists disagree with. [1:05:43] We fully acknowledge that hierarchy exists. [1:05:45] In fact, the reason why I am an anarchist [1:05:48] is because I believe I have a pretty good grasp on what human nature is [1:05:51] and in relation to our Lord and Savior and Creator. [1:05:54] The Christian anarchist. [1:05:56] I want to develop this just like a little bit because— [1:05:59] Sure, we'll go this direction. [1:06:00] There is a— [1:06:02] But I guess to finish that point real fast, [1:06:04] it's like I'll argue with everybody. [1:06:06] Democrat, progressive leftist, neocon war hawk, trad Catholic conservative. [1:06:12] You're all wrong. [1:06:14] It's Paul versus the world. [1:06:16] Sometimes, man. [1:06:17] But if I have to choose, I do find myself more closely aligned with conservative-ish values. [1:06:25] Basically, and the conservatives who tend to lean more libertarian, okay, now you're speaking my language. [1:06:30] Minarchists, I would call them, sometimes even constitutionalists. [1:06:34] You know, all right, we're on the same page. [1:06:36] Let's at least take five steps in this direction first, and then we'll argue about some of the other things. [1:06:40] But let's at least move the needle this way before we start arguing about things. [1:06:44] Yeah. Now, I guess this idea of anarchism, not that I'm like, you know, like I'll give a fair hearing to everybody. But anarcho-capitalism, I feel like after everybody watching specifically like The Summer of Love, George Floyd, when we hear the word anarchism, the first thing that pops up into our heads is Chaz. [1:07:10] chop. Or Portlandians smashing Starbucks windows or Antifa waving the anarchy flags. [1:07:19] This was something that I was very adamant about. I'm like, anarchy is bad. I'm reading, [1:07:25] what was that book by Bakunin, right? He's one of the original anarchists. I still think that [1:07:32] a lot of the anarchists around Paris in the 1700s with the Paris Commune, these are all [1:07:38] in my opinion, proto-Bolsheviks. [1:07:41] But you have... [1:07:42] I would not argue with that. [1:07:43] But you have a conception of anarchism [1:07:46] that blends with [1:07:48] Christianity, that is not [1:07:50] in any way chaos, [1:07:53] which is what we were seeing [1:07:54] in CHOP. That was all chaos. [1:07:56] I think you've got a brand of anarchism [1:07:58] that is not chaotic, [1:08:00] it's not about violence, [1:08:02] it's not about all of this stuff that we've been [1:08:04] seeing on TV. Well, and I can already hear [1:08:06] your, I don't know what you call them, [1:08:08] listeners, producers, we call our listeners producers, but I can already hear half of them [1:08:12] going like, but anarchy is chaos. How can it be anything but chaos? And that comes from both sides [1:08:20] of the political spectrum. Now, again, that's why I argue with the left and the neo-right, [1:08:24] whatever you want to call them, equally, because both of them have their perceived [1:08:29] version of statism that they like. And in the absence of that preferred version of statism [1:08:34] that they like, then it would just be chaos, and they use the term anarchy. So anarchy has become [1:08:38] a negative connotation, a negative term, and it's used as a pejorative. That stems from a lack of [1:08:44] understanding of what anarchy actually is, and it's really just the same as a literal reading [1:08:48] of the Bible if you're into that sort of thing, just like the Bible is the Bible, and it says [1:08:52] what it says. Well, that anarchy basically means no rulers. It doesn't mean no rules. Anarchy is [1:08:58] essentially the absence of a monolithic Leviathan state. So government is even a term that I'm [1:09:05] careful to use. You'll notice in our conversations in the past, I rarely actually use the term [1:09:09] government. I'll use the term the state. And that's because government is something as simple [1:09:14] as the way your household is structured with you as the patriarch and your wife is the patriarch [1:09:19] and your children under you and in a godly fashion. And there's hierarchy there. It is a form of [1:09:24] government that can look the same in an HOA that can look the same in a [1:09:28] nonprofit organization that is governance that's government or [1:09:31] corporation yeah that that is government by definition there's [1:09:34] hierarchy and there's people who do what other people say but it's you know it's [1:09:38] got structure that's all government is the state is Leviathan it's monolithic [1:09:42] the state claims to have rights that you and I as individuals can't naturally or [1:09:47] physically possess to wit do you possess the right to murder no do you possess [1:09:54] the right to steal? Are those natural rights that you or I have? No. Okay. So can we, not having [1:10:01] those rights ourselves, can we give those rights to somebody else? If you can't give what you don't [1:10:08] have. Right. That makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. Well, that's the state because that's [1:10:13] you and me going, well, I don't want to steal from you and you're not super interested in murdering [1:10:18] me. But if we write some things down on this piece of paper, put on a costume and then go, [1:10:26] whoosh, we're a government. And now we can pay a cop. We call them a peace officer [1:10:34] to go extract taxes to pay for NIC. And we call that civilization. All you're doing is robbing [1:10:41] from your neighbor, but you don't have the balls to do it yourself because that's dangerous. And [1:10:45] also in any other circumstance, if you went to your neighbor, let's say there's 12 of you in a [1:10:49] neighborhood and 10 of them come to you and your neighbor who live next door. You both agree. The [1:10:54] other 10 see things a little differently and they show up at your door and they go, Hey neighbors, [1:10:57] how are you doing? You're like, Oh, that's a beautiful day. And I go, great. We have this [1:11:00] great idea. There's been a little bit of a suspicious activity in the neighborhood and [1:11:03] we all want to protect our stuff. Well, we got this guy here, we'll call him Bob and we're going [1:11:08] to pay Bob to keep the neighborhood safe. Sounds like a great idea. I'm like, yeah, okay. That [1:11:12] sounds like a great idea but uh but i kind of do my home my own self-defense i'm happy with [1:11:17] defending my home the way i do it and and uh and frankly i'm not interested in paying bob [1:11:22] i can take care of this myself and they go well that's all well and fine but all of us have to [1:11:27] pitch in to pay bob right and if you don't pay your fair share to pay bob uh well then we can't [1:11:33] protect you from what bob will do to you yeah if you don't pay bob to protect you yeah it's [1:11:39] fucking ludicrous. It's absolutely absurd and insane. And in any other, and so you take that [1:11:45] example and just apply it to anything that the state does, anything that we take for granted as [1:11:49] like normal and legitimate, but that's exactly what happens. We just say it's legitimate because [1:11:56] somewhere along the line, somebody went, whoosh, magic wand. Now I wrote it down on this piece of [1:11:59] paper. And then a hundred years of public education where we pray to the God of the state. [1:12:05] And all of a sudden everybody goes, yeah, it's always been this way. How could it not be this [1:12:08] way without if it wasn't this way it would be chaos it would be anarchy right and we'd all just [1:12:13] kill each other i live in a neighborhood up in clark fork i'm five miles north of clark fork [1:12:19] a town of 500 people doxed i dox myself it's okay i'm not as scared of any of you guys come at me [1:12:25] uh we'll have a great time come on shooting sometimes i'll fire up the grill we'll smoke [1:12:30] cigars we'll take you down to the creek we'll have a great time and i'll tell you all about [1:12:33] how you all are wrong uh like we actually live about as close as you can get to it while still [1:12:38] being under the thumb of county governance and state governance. Luckily, no city governance, [1:12:43] no HOAs or nothing. But we live in a way that is pretty old America, old school Idaho, if you will, [1:12:50] bringing it back into the Idaho angle. [1:12:53] Frontier living. [1:12:54] Cops are an hour away, minimum. Most amenities and things that people take for granted for us [1:13:00] are 45 minutes to an hour and a half away. But we're not out there killing each other. [1:13:05] Like if I want something, I go buy it from my neighbor sometimes or from the little supermarket in Clark Fork. [1:13:13] When we had the flood come through in December that blew through a couple of people's homes and busted out the creek and took out a chunk of the road and everything, nobody looted, nobody murdered, nobody stole. [1:13:24] We all pitched together and we helped each other. [1:13:26] And I don't know most of my neighbors by name. [1:13:29] I know a few of them, but we're in a loop of, I think it's 160 parcels when it's all said and done. [1:13:34] So there's probably 500 people up there, most of whom never interact. [1:13:39] We maintain our own road. [1:13:40] It's a road association. [1:13:42] It's a road maintenance association. [1:13:43] And if you don't pay, nobody comes to your door and hurts you. [1:13:47] You just don't get a good road. [1:13:49] So 85, 95% of us pay our dues every year. [1:13:53] It's 300 bucks and somebody takes care of our road. [1:13:56] And it is basically anarchy. [1:13:59] We cooperate. [1:14:00] We don't kill each other. [1:14:01] We don't hurt each other. [1:14:02] And the cops are so far away. [1:14:03] I could take out half the neighborhood before anybody would even know. [1:14:06] Why don't we? [1:14:08] Why don't I go to my elderly neighbor's home, Fred and Jackie, who I love and adore, [1:14:12] but I want something of theirs, why don't I just kill them and take it? [1:14:17] Because most people don't behave that way. [1:14:21] Even people we would consider to be amoral or sometimes even immoral, [1:14:25] at the end of the day, people don't behave that way. [1:14:28] There are a few. [1:14:29] but they get dealt with pretty quickly because the the risk of doing so is so high yeah it's [1:14:35] much easier to trade with you than it is to kill you and take your stuff because you might fight [1:14:39] back you might hurt me but also you can shear a sheep many times you can only skin him once [1:14:43] right take your shit now i gotta go take somebody else's shit or else the jig is up right and so on [1:14:48] and so forth so i'm rabbit trailing and i don't mean to but it's a it doesn't mean no rules it [1:14:54] just means no rulers and the idea is voluntarism basically do things peacefully and without [1:15:01] coercion yeah there's always bad actors like this is not utopia yeah i'm not advocating for utopia [1:15:07] it doesn't exist people are people most of bad actors though they get dealt with pretty quick [1:15:11] or they decide well in a free market where i can start a bit like the crack dealer on the street [1:15:16] i know this is gonna you're gonna trad catholic dave is gonna love this example but when i look [1:15:22] at like a young punk ass drug dealer in detroit on this on the corner hock and blow or whatever [1:15:27] some people go well his ass should be in jail forever fuck that guy i look at that kid i look [1:15:32] at that kid and i go that's an entrepreneur he's serving if people wouldn't buy it he wouldn't sell [1:15:39] it and instead of ruining lives over these sorts of things now like am i am i like go do drugs kids [1:15:46] drugs are great no i'm not like pro drug but i also don't believe in criminalizing anything until [1:15:51] there's a victim. You got to have a victim before there's a crime. So I look at that and I go, [1:15:56] this kid is an entrepreneur, maybe in a free market where he didn't have to ask the city of [1:16:00] Detroit for permission to run a business. And then the state of Michigan for permission to run a [1:16:04] business and then get taxed out the ass for it all file every paperwork known to man have to deal [1:16:09] with payroll, all that stuff. I bet you he'd probably run a pretty good business. That's what [1:16:13] would happen in anarchy. You don't ask permission. You just peacefully exist and you hawk your wares [1:16:18] and you do your thing. [1:16:19] And then the bad actors, [1:16:20] there will always be a few. [1:16:21] Most of them, [1:16:22] we take care of them ourselves [1:16:23] or they decide it's easier [1:16:24] to trade instead of kill. [1:16:27] Yeah, they're definitely [1:16:28] getting thrown in jail for life. [1:16:30] No, I'm kidding. [1:16:31] But, you know, [1:16:32] one of the things [1:16:33] that is really beautiful. [1:16:34] There's a ton more to unpack, [1:16:35] but no, no, no. [1:16:36] But I was going to say [1:16:36] one of the things [1:16:37] that's so beautiful [1:16:38] about North Idaho [1:16:39] is that you are able [1:16:41] in this area [1:16:42] to live the way that you live [1:16:44] with this kind of voluntarist, [1:16:46] anarchist type of mentality. [1:16:49] And most of them would never identify it that way. [1:16:51] That's what's hilarious. [1:16:51] If I used the term anarchist with my neighbors, [1:16:54] they'd look at me like I had four ears. [1:16:56] Right, right, right. [1:16:56] And be like, we're not into that shit, Paul. [1:16:59] Right. [1:16:59] Okay, let me start over and explain this to you guys. [1:17:03] But the reason why is because there is a stark lack of diversity up here. [1:17:10] Not in diversity, but racial diversity. [1:17:14] Just straight up, I'll say it. [1:17:16] People pay millions of dollars to live in houses up here because of that. [1:17:22] Straight up. [1:17:23] That's why. [1:17:23] So I'm going to push back on that. [1:17:24] I'd say there's an element of truth to that for sure. [1:17:28] I would say maybe with some folks it might even be a primary driver. [1:17:32] That might be why they're here. [1:17:33] I think a lot of it, though, is it's a cultural issue, not necessarily a race issue. [1:17:37] Now, race and culture often go hand in hand. [1:17:39] But they are not locked together inseparably. [1:17:44] No, there's a guy. [1:17:45] I mean, Alex Barron. [1:17:46] Yeah. Let me let me introduce you to a man named Alex Barron, the whitest black guy I've ever met. [1:17:50] He's whiter than most white people. I'm thinking of Dave from Coquelala Cowboy Church, you know, [1:17:55] like David Thompson might be who you're thinking of, who was also a client of mine, who's a black [1:18:00] pastor who's up here. And he's like, he's great. Or a buddy of mine, Ray, who I play paintball with, [1:18:05] who listens to heavy death metal on our way to practice. I mean, like, and he's a super great [1:18:09] dude. Like, it's a cultural thing. And this is, again, where anarchy does help, is that when [1:18:15] people are free to move about freedom of movement, they also then are able to better enjoy freedom of [1:18:21] association. And people tend to self-sort. And a lot of the issues you see, like in Portland and [1:18:27] Seattle and pretty much every blue island city that exists, it's not necessarily a race issue [1:18:34] or even a multiculturalism issue. It's an issue of the state jamming that down everybody's throats [1:18:40] by fiat, by decree. Social engineering. [1:18:43] Social engineering. Yeah, I think [1:18:44] if you still were able to in Seattle [1:18:46] do what you wanted and there was the Italian [1:18:48] quarter over there and the Haitian quarter [1:18:50] over there and the Mexican quarter over there [1:18:52] and then there were meeting places where [1:18:54] people would come together for whatever reason because [1:18:56] they want to trade or whatever, [1:18:58] people would do it naturally. They don't have to be told to [1:19:00] and they would mostly do it peacefully. And if [1:19:02] they couldn't be peaceful, which a lot of people can't [1:19:05] for one reason or another, then they'd stay away from [1:19:07] each other. They would self-sort. [1:19:08] And then within their own communities, [1:19:10] They wouldn't rape, pillage, murder, and steal from each other. [1:19:14] They would take care of each other. [1:19:16] Usually. [1:19:16] I mean, you know, there's that system. [1:19:18] A generalization. [1:19:19] There is no utopia. [1:19:20] I was going to say this, you know, I take a trip once a year with my buddy Vince, Vince James. [1:19:25] The Red Elephants used to be on this podcast. [1:19:28] Once a year, we take a trip together to Chicago. [1:19:31] And that's where he grew up. [1:19:32] And, you know, his dad was a sheriff. [1:19:33] not to dox Vince's dad or anything like that but like Vince's dad was literally like a gang banger [1:19:40] a member of like I forget which which group it was it was the the gangster disciples I think [1:19:47] right he was literally like a member of this like gang and then also brought on the sheriff's [1:19:54] department while an active gang member and like half of the sheriff's department was that way [1:19:59] and there were like white gangs, there were black gangs, there were Hispanic gangs [1:20:04] and the white people have their neighborhoods, the black people have their neighborhoods, [1:20:08] the Hispanics, they've got, you know, was it Little Village, I think is where like the Latin kings are. [1:20:14] And for the most part, everybody kind of self-polices, you know, [1:20:18] but the problem is like, you know, you got O'Block, you get like a bunch of these YNs [1:20:22] that are like out there just like, you know, 15 years old, 12 years old with a Glock and a switch [1:20:27] and they're just like, you know, hopped up on drugs, killing each other. [1:20:31] It's not good. [1:20:32] But anyway, I was just going to say, we do have the luxury. [1:20:34] Those people tend to self-sort as well. [1:20:37] Don't go to O'Block at 2 in the morning like me and you'll be fine. [1:20:41] Like even at the most local level, peace is prosperity. [1:20:45] War is expensive. [1:20:46] Yeah. [1:20:46] Whether it's our neighborhood, whether it's over in the Middle East, [1:20:50] war is the antithesis of prosperity. [1:20:53] and most people, when you are free to make pragmatic, sensible decisions in a free market, [1:21:01] you weigh the cost, right? Individuals are rational. Now, a person is smart, people are stupid, [1:21:07] but a acting, thinking person, while being smart or stupid, is rational. And that means whatever [1:21:15] serves their best interest, and most of the time doesn't, it usually doesn't involve hurting [1:21:19] somebody else, that is what they will pursue. So my philosophy or ideology, if you want to call it [1:21:25] that, is all based around the fact that people are, humans are rational. Human nature may not [1:21:31] be the prettiest thing, but it is rational to trade, not to kill. It is rational to self-sort, [1:21:37] not to try and duke it out, and so on and so forth. Yeah. No, I totally agree. I think that [1:21:43] if we just didn't have, because, you know, in a lot of the stuff that happened, the radicalism [1:21:48] of the 70s and the 80s. [1:21:49] I talked about this with Wayne Hoffman a little bit, [1:21:51] like the busing issue, that caused bombings, gunfights. [1:21:58] And it was all so that because the government airdropped [1:22:02] and decided, I don't like the racial demographics of this. [1:22:05] It's too white. [1:22:05] We need more black people. [1:22:07] And people started freaking out [1:22:09] and people started shooting each other, bombing. [1:22:11] And it was all social engineering. [1:22:13] If you had just let people alone, [1:22:16] if you had just been hands off of it, [1:22:18] we wouldn't have seen any of that. [1:22:20] No, and you would have spots that already were naturally integrated. [1:22:24] And I think over time, more places would naturally integrate [1:22:27] to the degree that they chose. [1:22:28] Sure. [1:22:29] Because again, it's a cultural issue. [1:22:30] I honestly don't care if you are black, white, gay, [1:22:35] whatever the hell you might be. [1:22:36] I don't care if you share my values and my culture. [1:22:40] Now, a lot of the time, some of those tags typically automatically mean [1:22:44] you're not going to share my values or my culture. [1:22:46] But there are individuals out there who may be, you know, super duper gay. [1:22:51] And I don't care as long as they don't bother me with it. [1:22:54] Basil, I'm looking at you. [1:22:56] Basil, we all know. [1:22:57] I'm kidding. [1:22:58] I say this tongue in cheek, but I do kind of mean it. [1:23:01] It's like I want to live in a world where gay married couples can defend their weed farms with AK-47s. [1:23:06] Bro, that's Cole. [1:23:08] He's posting Cole on my podcast. [1:23:10] What are we doing? [1:23:11] And then I want to be able to walk down the road and buy a gram from him if I so choose. [1:23:17] And nobody can tell us otherwise. [1:23:20] Now, like with the marriage thing, if we want to go down that road, here's the easy answer for that. [1:23:24] Just like it is for almost every issue. [1:23:25] It's get the state out of marriage. [1:23:28] Right. [1:23:28] So like we argued over state marriage or a gay marriage for what, 10 years? [1:23:31] I think it was a 10-year fight. [1:23:32] And then now nobody even balks at it. [1:23:35] But all we had to do was just go back to common law marriage. [1:23:38] Get the state out of it. [1:23:39] I don't need a certificate from you to say that we're legally married. [1:23:42] We did the thing. [1:23:43] I had a, you know, we had a pastor or maybe we didn't even do that. [1:23:46] We've been together for 20 years. [1:23:47] We have children. [1:23:48] We built a life together, whatever. [1:23:49] The state doesn't need to be involved. [1:23:50] Well, wait, how do gay people get children? [1:23:52] I'm not talking about, obviously, that's a great question. [1:23:56] I don't have all the answers. [1:23:59] I will say. [1:24:00] And I actually would argue that I don't think they should. [1:24:03] but I also would argue that it's not the state's role to dictate that. [1:24:10] Sure. [1:24:10] What we've run into, here we go, I'll wrap it up with this, [1:24:13] is what we've run into and why, [1:24:15] at least I'll wrap up my screed here about anarchy, [1:24:18] the reason why we fight over everything, Dave, now, [1:24:21] because you listen to the old timers and they always opine [1:24:24] about how we all used to get along and everything was better, [1:24:26] and to a degree they probably are right about how we didn't argue so much [1:24:29] and now we argue about everything. [1:24:31] that is because every single thing is now a public policy issue. [1:24:35] Because the state is involved in every single aspect of our lives. [1:24:38] You breathe and the state's involved. [1:24:40] You will do anything, conjure up anything, [1:24:43] and you have to ask permission or somebody somewhere is dictating [1:24:46] how, when, what, where. [1:24:48] You can do it. [1:24:49] So somebody like me who wants to never tell anybody what to do, [1:24:54] I am forced to be involved like I was with the racketeer [1:24:57] where I tried to politically move the needle where I saw I could. [1:25:00] even though I want nothing to do with the system and I think it's all crap [1:25:03] because, well, the opportunity was there to maybe move the needle back towards liberty, [1:25:08] even if it was 1%. [1:25:09] Well, 1% is better than not. [1:25:11] And everything that the state does still impacts me. [1:25:14] It impacts my licensor, whether or not I have to file for this or pay for that. [1:25:18] It affects my gas tax for when I drive. [1:25:21] It affects the tobacco tax for the wares that I'm selling. [1:25:24] It affects everything, locally on up, all of it. [1:25:28] It impacts every single aspect of what we do. [1:25:30] So I now am obligated. [1:25:33] I don't want to say obliged because I don't want to, [1:25:35] but I'm obligated to fight. [1:25:37] Yeah. [1:25:38] Amen. [1:25:39] So that, as an anarchist, I go, the state is the issue. [1:25:44] Get rid of it. [1:25:44] I don't care who's in charge. [1:25:45] It's all bad. [1:25:47] Now, there's varying degrees of bad, [1:25:50] but then we're just arguing over the shade of shit. [1:25:53] You know, it's like some people look at the glass as half full. [1:25:55] Some look at it as a glass half empty. [1:25:57] I look at that and I go, I'm pretty sure there's piss in there. I think that's piss. And then [1:26:02] some conservative or monarchist or, uh, or minarchist or constitutionalist would be like, [1:26:07] yeah, but it's only 30% piss. Wait, what's a minarchist? Uh, a minarchist is somebody who's [1:26:11] finding themselves in between constitutionalism and, uh, anarchy. A minarchist would be somebody [1:26:16] who goes, I don't believe in any of it except for like these three things. And the three things are [1:26:20] usually like a national standing army, a national road system and something. And, uh, and, and police, [1:26:25] which incidentally two of those three things are the institutions most poised to kill you [1:26:30] and they're the institutions that the state uses to enforce everything that it does so [1:26:35] when i talked to minarchists about that i'm like you do realize that the couple of things that you [1:26:39] do want to keep are the very things that put the boot on your neck so where did i lose you there [1:26:44] but uh yeah see that's it's so weird because it's like i you know not that i don't know what i am or [1:26:50] what I believe I do very deeply. [1:26:53] Like I'm definitely all for like actually abolishing the police. [1:26:57] This is a position that we would have them. [1:27:00] We would still have them. [1:27:01] It would just be the market would provide. [1:27:03] Do you want, [1:27:03] you want them then as a group or as a neighborhood or as a co-op or as a [1:27:07] corporation or whatever, [1:27:09] guess what? [1:27:09] You can still hire them, [1:27:10] but now you're the customer. [1:27:13] So when police have to view citizens or other people as the customer, [1:27:18] every interaction completely changes from it, [1:27:20] I have the shield and I am the law bringer. [1:27:23] Instead, it is, hey, I'm here to stop you if you're hurting somebody or something. [1:27:28] Otherwise, carry on about your business. [1:27:30] Because if the customers don't like the service, guess what? [1:27:34] They find somebody else. [1:27:35] The contract ends. [1:27:36] We can't do that with police when police are agents of the state. [1:27:40] Well, and so this is where I draw my distinction. [1:27:42] And I guess I'm just a little, you know, goofy or weird or whatever. [1:27:45] but this idea of, you know, the sheriff, we elect the sheriff. So at least every four years, [1:27:54] you have some sort of like referendum, theoretically, as imperfect as it is, [1:27:59] the recourse is from the sheriff to the people. And there is at least one person in the county [1:28:04] that can arrest the sheriff, right? The coroner. At least that's how it is up here. But like [1:28:09] having the Idaho State Police, the Coeur d'Alene Police, and then having all of their territories [1:28:16] overlapping one another. So you've got like in downtown Coeur d'Alene, that is ISP territory, [1:28:22] it is Coeur d'Alene Police territory, and it's Sheriff's Department territory, and there is no [1:28:28] hierarchy, which is my problem with it, where it's like I want the sheriff to be able to tell these [1:28:33] people in the police department to knock it off and say, you know, so he can step in and take over [1:28:38] and handle a particular case. [1:28:41] And that was the original design. [1:28:42] That was the original design. [1:28:43] I would like that, you know? [1:28:45] I would like a million bucks. [1:28:48] One Bitcoin! [1:28:49] But we're going back to the nature of the state. [1:28:52] Yeah. [1:28:54] It's immutable. [1:28:55] You can't get away from it. [1:28:56] As good of an institution as it sounds, [1:28:58] the sheriff even, [1:28:59] because we get to elect him, [1:29:01] the nature of people, [1:29:02] the nature of self-sorting, [1:29:04] the human nature, [1:29:04] the nature of the state, [1:29:05] all means that you're going to have it [1:29:07] be exactly the way it is now, where they all agree mostly, and they all do things the same way, [1:29:14] and they all are in lockstep, and they all support each other, especially when it comes to law [1:29:17] enforcement, because law enforcement is a huge cult. It's us versus them, and we're the them. [1:29:22] It's the heroes versus the villains, and they're the heroes. Perpetually, they are the heroes in [1:29:26] their minds. You cannot have a career in law enforcement. You cannot hope to get elected as [1:29:31] the sheriff, if you are anti-law enforcement against every other agency. You have to support [1:29:37] the other agencies or you don't get their support. And if you don't get their support, you don't get [1:29:41] elected. It's how it works. Try running, even as a politician, anywhere in Idaho, anywhere, [1:29:47] and be labeled as anti-police or anti-firefighter, God forbid, or whatever. Those endorsements are [1:29:53] huge when the police associations come out and go, we endorse so-and-so. Everybody goes, oh my gosh, [1:29:58] okay, the police like them, so they must be great. [1:30:01] For me, I look at that and go, [1:30:02] I know who I'm not voting for. [1:30:03] Oh, yeah. [1:30:03] When I see the fraternal order of police [1:30:05] put out a recommendation. [1:30:06] I immediately know who I don't want. [1:30:08] I'm like, I'm not voting for that one. [1:30:09] I'm voting the other way. [1:30:10] Absolutely. [1:30:11] It's just how people operate. [1:30:12] And then when you give them this monolithic system [1:30:16] that is essentially a monopoly of power [1:30:19] and more importantly, force, [1:30:21] because ultimately power is force. [1:30:23] It's backed by force. [1:30:25] This is what you're going to get every time. [1:30:27] everywhere you go. [1:30:29] It's not a bug. [1:30:30] It's a feature. [1:30:31] And so as an anarchist, [1:30:33] I look at all of these systems. [1:30:34] I look at, I guess, [1:30:35] the state and all of the systems [1:30:36] and how people interact with it [1:30:38] and within it [1:30:39] and without it. [1:30:41] And I go, [1:30:42] no, this is, [1:30:44] it's a feature, [1:30:45] not a bug. [1:30:46] So what do we do? [1:30:47] What's the common denominator? [1:30:48] The common denominator is the state. [1:30:50] Yeah. [1:30:51] Let's maybe, [1:30:52] so that's where [1:30:53] I try to move the needle locally, [1:30:55] but I've also tried to [1:30:57] encourage basically what I would say parallel society, building parallel societies. I think [1:31:04] that's ultimately how we win. And then that way you get your choice of parallel society. [1:31:09] The Trad Catholics, I know, have their idea of what that looks like, a lot of which I agree with. [1:31:14] And I think it's a beautiful thing. The Presbyterians aren't bad either. [1:31:16] They have their moments. The OPC is all right. Yeah. I'll admit I'm not at a Presbyterian church [1:31:22] because there are none in my area, which is a bummer, [1:31:24] but Cabinet Mountain Calvary Church, they're a great place to be. [1:31:30] I like them. [1:31:30] They're kind of like if you took Church of Christ and you updated it [1:31:34] and brought Church of Christ from the 80s and brought it into the early 2000s. [1:31:37] That's kind of like the church I'm at now. [1:31:39] They're good people. [1:31:40] They don't mess around when it comes to the Bible, and I appreciate that. [1:31:43] But I digress. [1:31:44] Sorry, that was a pretty heavy digression. [1:31:46] That's okay. [1:31:48] It's the parallel societies, I think, is how we win. [1:31:50] The idea of instead of— [1:31:52] instead of trying to take over the school board. [1:31:55] So like, those have been fights up here locally too, right? [1:31:57] Conservatives trying to take positions [1:31:59] on the local school board districts. [1:32:01] And I look at that and I go, [1:32:02] why are you wasting your time? [1:32:03] You're fighting something that you think is broken, [1:32:06] but it's not. [1:32:07] The school districts, [1:32:08] they're operating exactly how they are designed to operate. [1:32:11] The state-run indoctrination camps [1:32:13] are doing precisely what they are designed to do. [1:32:16] So you can't fix what isn't broken. [1:32:18] Instead, conservatives as a whole [1:32:20] should be focusing 100% on school choice. [1:32:26] In Idaho, that should be the policy battle right now, [1:32:29] is school choice, vouchers, ESAs, [1:32:32] making homeschool great again, so to speak. [1:32:36] Any opportunity to allow people to exit [1:32:38] the state indoctrination camps, [1:32:40] which right now requires the funding, right? [1:32:42] You got to secure the funding [1:32:43] because people can't fathom having to pay [1:32:45] for their own kids' education, [1:32:46] which is mind-boggling to myself. [1:32:48] So that's a battle I would have, [1:32:49] but I would have that after I win this battle. [1:32:51] And this battle would be all the alternatives [1:32:54] that people can have to the state-run indoctrination camps. [1:32:57] Let's start there. [1:32:58] Because the moment people can take their kids out of those [1:33:00] and realize there is a choice, [1:33:02] and we have an opportunity here to mold our kids [1:33:05] according to God and our value systems, [1:33:08] then in a generation, [1:33:10] the change that will come from that is incredible. [1:33:12] That's actually where I see post-COVID hope [1:33:14] is because post-COVID showed so many parents [1:33:18] how bad the system was. [1:33:19] homeschooling is bigger than it's ever been since it's been on it recorded yeah alternative schools [1:33:24] charter schools private schools uh all of them growth huge growth double digit growth homeschooling [1:33:29] is at like 12 right now yeah and i look at that and i go hallelujah that's how we win my kids are [1:33:35] going to then have their kids and they're they're going to be like no why public school yeah what [1:33:40] the hell is that why would i know i when i was homeschooled and my parents did this with me i [1:33:44] got to work part-time while i also got to study my interests and there still was of course [1:33:48] structure and things were demanded of us, but I learned how to work. There were home chores. I went [1:33:53] places with my parents and learned how to interact with people ages zero to 80 and not just people [1:33:58] who were exactly my age, because that's insane. Like what kind of socialization is that? People [1:34:04] always talk about that angle too. What about socialization? And I go, oh, well, if I want to [1:34:07] give my kids a public school socialization, I'll tell you what I do. I throw my son into a locker [1:34:12] and I make fun of him for wearing goofy clothes. And then I pick on my daughter for not being [1:34:17] popular enough or something along those lines. I tell them that the state is God. Obey everything [1:34:23] that I say. Don't think critically at all. And also the only people they can hang out with are [1:34:27] exactly their age for the next 12 years. Sounds awesome. Oh, and I'll stick them in a building [1:34:33] that looks like a prison and they only get to move from place to place with permission. Yeah. [1:34:39] I got to go to the pot. No, like, yeah, no, it's, it's true. So build something else. Yeah. And [1:34:45] And this is the other thing, too, that I'm going to be doing a couple of episodes on this in the future. [1:34:49] But it's this concept of rebuilding social fabric, you know, having and you've been so instrumental in that here in North Idaho, building, you know, businesses where people congregate and talk to one another in the real world. [1:35:02] You're not, you know, behind a screen. You're not shouting at each other on X. [1:35:05] You're actually having to occupy some physical space with some other person that might disagree with you on a little bit or a lot of it. [1:35:12] but you're building this social fabric that used to be there [1:35:18] where people used to go out and interact. [1:35:21] They weren't always listening to podcasts in their cars, [1:35:25] totally isolated from everyone around them. [1:35:28] Well, the pub was a public forum. [1:35:30] The pub was the meeting place. [1:35:32] It was a cultural thing that we've almost completely lost, [1:35:35] and that was at the forefront of my mind with the Bulldog, [1:35:39] but definitely with the racketeer the second iteration i really knew what i wanted how i [1:35:44] wanted it to look and i mean that's why we have no tvs in there yeah was uh and that was a resounding [1:35:49] success i think only a handful of people ever walked in and went oh there's no tvs i can't [1:35:53] watch a ball game and i was like nope we're we're here to uh have facetime with each other we're [1:35:58] here to have fellowship with each other yeah sports and the weather we don't care religion [1:36:03] and politics all day baby like talk about things that matter and have real relationship and [1:36:08] connection and fellowship. And we don't, of course we had people we don't agree with, but that was, [1:36:13] it was exciting. That was fun. Yeah. I think so. Well, Paul, thank you so much for joining me [1:36:18] today. I think this was a great conversation. Maybe we'll, we'll have to have you back again. [1:36:22] We'll talk about some other angles of this stuff. Some of the other things that you've had to deal [1:36:26] with. You can find Paul and his work at no ID show.com. You need to update this photo. I know, [1:36:34] Oh, I know. [1:36:35] Your dreadlocks are gone. [1:36:37] You're looking slick now. [1:36:39] Look at this. [1:36:39] It's very nice. [1:36:41] But thank you so much for joining us. [1:36:43] And thank you for having me. [1:36:44] God bless. [1:36:45] I appreciate it. [1:36:45] Absolutely. [1:36:46] Cheers. [1:36:46] Cheers.