The Statist Quo

Today's episode, we're joined by a special guest, Todd Hagopian, who WAS running for LP Chair, until his announcement of withdrawal on 12/3. While getting his name out for Libertarian Party Chair race is now irrelevant, there was still a very productive and interesting conversation that was recorded, and we wanted to share it regardless.

Todd goes over some pretty in depth issues that he has with how the party has been run as of late, as well as things he likes.

We wish Todd the best in all future endeavors, as he practices what he preaches in our interview, and seeks out a position in local races.

Follow Todd on twitter Libertarian-In-Chief(@ToddHagopian)

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In this bonus episode of The Statist Quo, our friend Pat from Uncensored Tactical returns to talk with Matt about two books that contain a ton of value, especially for vets, but great for anyone interested in self-defense.  They are On Killing and On Combat, both by Army Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (Ret.).  ;)

In these books, Grossman shares research he had conducted with law enforcement and military veterans who had been in deadly force encounters.  On Killing is great for some of the rarely discussed dark sides of combat, but the belle of the ball here is On Combat, a great guide to the psychological and physiological processes that happen when human beings find themselves in life-or-death situations involving violence.

Shockingly (or not), the VAST majority of content in this book is mentioned rarely, if at all, by the military, at least not in an official capacity.  Which is why we both strongly recommend reading at least On Combat for those who are or have been in combat arms or law enforcement.

Thanks for listening!  Go check out Pat at www.uncensoredtactical.com!

Matt sits down with our buddy Chuck, an Army Iraq War vet, to discuss Iraq, deployment, and struggles we’ve had afterwards. 

We also discuss a project he has in the works that I am super stoked about, a podcast series on PTSI, moral injury, and how those affected have overcome it. I’m kicking myself I didn’t come up with it first! :)

Keep an eye out for that, we will be promoting it when it comes out.

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Last week, the President pardoned two Army officers convicted in controversial war crimes cases, and reinstated SEAL Eddie Gallagher to his prior rank—Even though us mere mortals in Big Army would get bad paper discharged on his drug charge alone. 

Trump decided he didn’t like the idea of American warfighters catching charges just for “doing their jobs and keeping their men safe.”  But is that what really happened?  We take a look at the case of former 1LT Clint Lorance, freshly pardoned for second-degree murder from his order to kill unarmed Afghanis in 2012. 

We go through the facts of the case, some of his and his platoon’s statements, and try to get to the bottom of what happened there and how it impacted the men under his command. Using this as a case study we try to break down the nature of deploying in counter-insurgency operations, the complexities of the modern battlefield and how US Soldiers are expected to act. We also examine what these pardons mean for the Forever Wars in general and Trump’s seeming affection for total war on the civilian population.  Matt also adds in some of his personal experience. 

Do you think Lorance deserves that pardon? Do you think soldiers who kill “unlawfully” should get a pass because war is hard, or are we a “nation of laws” and should all troops be subjected to UCMJ?

Before you answer, remember the Empire always comes home. 

Thanks for listening, we appreciate you taking the time to check us out and hope you found some value in this and every other show. 

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Links

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/us/jailed-ex-army-officer-has-support-but-not-from-his-platoon.html

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2008863,00.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/us/jailed-ex-army-officer-has-support-but-not-from-his-platoon.html

School Mass Shooting paper we didn’t get to!

https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=278100090106069007097086018103095076096012041014091091022030024078000120122089093064039025063115053046114001075086110112118082122074062093047126011002073093111004042080110115066088119064119115077067010078105098009101003003104101097075115015103116&EXT=pdf

The fellers sit down with Monica Perez, host of the Propaganda Report Podcast, and host of the Monica Perez Show on terrestrial radio station WSB in Atlanta.  We cover a lot of ground on this interview, ranging from Irving Kristol's book on Neoconservatism and the conservative welfare state, to Bill Barr's DOJ and its most recent push to pass legislation and executive rules befitting the Minority Report (retina-scanning drones notwithstanding....yet).  Matt and Monica discuss Barr's pre-crime proposals, and John Cornyn's RESPONSE Act, which contains several policies that they tried to get passed during the Obama years after Sandy Hook, yet failed.  However, it seems that Republican voters are much more tolerant of gun control when it comes from their guy, leading a listener of Monica's show to coin the phrase "It will take a Republican."

Thanks for listening!

Share the show, give us a review and a rating on iTunes!! It's a huge help for us!

 You will do yourself a great service if you subscribe and listen to our guest, Monica. Check out her website , The Propaganda Report. 

In observance of Veterans Day 2019, we thought we’d tell some veteran’s stories. But not the usual tales of courage under and the “allure of battle”. Instead, we wanted to share a veteran story that never gets told:  The events surrounding the Bonus Army. 

In 1932, in the depths of the greatest economic catastrophe in the modern era (caused by the Federal Reserve), a group of World War I veterans marched on DC to claim early the cash bonuses they had been promised by Congress for their wartime service. 

Not only does this tale not get told enough, but even the history of the age surrounding it is distorted by mainstream media and the approved court historians of the Regime. So this is our humble attempt to set the record straight, and to tell the story of the Bonus Expeditionary Force, and their harsh treatment at the hands of “A Grateful Nation”.  

At the end of the day, two veterans were killed along with an infant child. A total on 1,107 veterans were injured, mostly by arsenic-based tear gas, and sixty-eight cops also were injured in an attempt to break up the peaceful protest by violent means. 

The military, commanded by Chief of Staff Gen. Douglas McArthur, Majors George S. Patton and Bradley ultimately broke up the protest and burned the veterans temporary camp. 

A couple of the biggest names of World War 2, worshipped by many to this day, turned the sword on their fellow veterans...a tale that continues to repeat itself to this day. 

You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=treaty+of+versailles+mises+institute&t=iphone&ia=web

https://mises.org/wire/treaty-versailles-—-100-years-later

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Matt sits down with Donnie Gebert, author of A Direct Republic: The Null Hypothesis of Politics. Donnie wrote this book to show how we could fire Congress and allow each person to become their own representative. 

We talk about Donnie’s time in the military, especially his time in Intelligence, and how that influenced his thinking on government. 

We also spend some time on cryptocurrency, and the future of the ailing US dollar. 

Thanks for listening. You can check out his work here:

https://www.thenullhypothesisofpolitics.com/

In today’s Statist Quo, Matt goes into some current events, including some of the militarized Musical Chairs going on in the Middle East, and notes the few recent casualties in the 18 year old Afghanistan war. 

He also goes into what’s going on with protests in Chile, and what the long-term effects of gun control always are:  Tyranny. 

Pinochet rose to power after a military coup from Uncle Sam, and immediately moved to seize all arms in private hands. 

We delve into the extent America’s involvement in his rise to power, and their complicity in the murderous national security police state he built up.

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We talk a lot of the real past, and hypothetical future, but thanks to guys like our guest, we can talk about a possible REAL FUTURE in decentralization! Matt is joined by Theodore, the executive director of Crowd Funded Government. Listen as Theodore explains in detail, his idea for a decentralized, voluntarily  funded government and how this idea can be implemented. The good thing about CFG is that it can work for everybody on the political spectrum, and allows for people to contribute or withhold whatever they deem to be necessary for government to function on. If you want to get the ball rolling on decentralization and voluntaryism (ancaps I'm talking to YOU!) then you wont want to miss this interesting interview!

Crowd Funded Government Website!
Theodore Twitter


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On this extended cut of the Statist Quo Matt sits down with Jared from Biting the Bullet to talk about a Medium article sent to us by a listener.  The article, included in the show notes, has a lot of things we are sympathetic to, taken one by one, but when included in the context of this article, send the wrong message.  We go off on a few tangents, share some military stories and deployment stories, and turn a nine-minute read into a 2 hour session.  

There's a lot to cover in this article, relating to combat stress and PTSD, the "mission" and foreign policy, veteran re-entry into society and the massive gulf between the veteran and civilian communities, and the modern "All-Volunteer Force".  We touch on just about all of it, mixing in our own experiences.

A big thanks to Jared for coming on and tackling this article with me, very much appreciated.

You should listen to Biting the Bullet if you don't already, it's a great listen.  Follow them on Twitter at @BitingBulletPod and Jared at @TheMongoose0861.

Follow us at @StatistQuoPod for Matt on Twitter, and The Statist Quo Facebook page for Nick.

Finally, if you have an article, podcast or video you want us to deconstruct, or a topic you'd like our take on, feel free to hit us up.  We love doing listener-generated shows.  We have one or two in the works right now, actually....

Thanks for listening!! 


Links
https://humanparts.medium.com/the-conversation-about-war-and-our-veterans-we-refuse-to-have-a95c26972aee