Season 11, Episode 7 April 13, 2025

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the listening tube.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Well, hello. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley. This week, we'll hear some of the demographics of Nassau County, New York, and I'll have a conversation with a member of the Swiss Cantonal Parliament and a colonel in the Swiss Army about citizenship, patriotism, and pirates.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

But first, not the headlines.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

If you've ever thought to yourself, man, I never want to have to drive in New York City, you're not alone. There are professional truck drivers who refuse to do it. For a visitor, it might be one of the most stress-filled experiences you'll ever have. Not to mention the $9 charge to enter the busiest part of the city that was short-lived but fully supported by the governor. Now there's a bill working its way to the governor's desk that will make driving in the entire state more of a crapshoot. A Fox News story by Landon Meon that was posted on April 7th at 2 17 AM local time. Really? Two in the morning, Landon? Who are you trying to impress? Did you have a 3 a.m. deadline for a story about a bill working its way through the New York legislature? Get some sleep, Landon. Anyway, Landon's story is about the state of New York preventing police from making traffic stops for minor infractions. Remember when President Biden told Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine, but then added that, well, a minor incursion might be tolerated? Look where that got us. But the bill suggests that police in New York would no longer be able to stop a driver to warn them that they have a tail light out, or if their registration is expired. Not just for those reasons, but the story also cites the examples of too much window tint or the odor of marijuana. Is the odor of cracked cocaine and alcohol okay? The story doesn't say. Not only will the police be prohibited from making stops, but just to make sure they don't find some other reason to pull someone over, the bill will also make any evidence collected during the stop inadmissible in court. That way the cops won't even bother to waste their time. By now you might be thinking, but Bob, if they're just warning people, what's the problem? Well, there really isn't a problem with that part. However, allow me to relate a personal story. About a week ago, my boss alerted me to the possibility that I may have a brake light out. I couldn't recall seeing my boss driving behind me, so I don't know how he knew that, but I made a mental note of it. A couple days later, I tried to find out if I had a bad brake light, but since I was by myself and couldn't find anything heavy enough to put on the brake pedal while I went behind the car to look, I still hadn't confirmed it. Then a few days later, I asked a woman I work with to look while I pressed on the brake pedal. She said, Yep, driver side. Maybe I'll get to it tomorrow. But if I get pulled over by a police officer about it, he has the option of warning me or giving me a ticket. It might depend on my demeanor, or if he sees or smells anything else while I have his undivided attention. Let's just say that I always practice good manners, so I got that going for me. I'm hoping for just a warning. But the fact is, police also hand out tickets, and those tickets are a revenue source for the local municipality. Plus, if nobody is enforcing registration laws, the state is losing money on those fees too. Pulling people over for minor infractions is not only a service to the person who gets a warning, but also a revenue-generating way to make the streets safer and maintain minimum standards of operational safety. Seems like a win-win. So why does the state of New York want to eliminate this responsibility? I wish I could say, you're not gonna believe this.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Bob didn't believe it.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

But you probably will. The reason is equity. It seems that certain racial groups break minor traffic laws more than other racial groups, so the obvious solution to this disparity is to stop enforcing those particular types of laws. I'm sure the authors of the bill didn't just haphazardly come to this conclusion. I'm sure they put a lot of thought into it before deciding it was the best course of action. I haven't yet mentioned which racial groups we're talking about, so if you already have an image in your head, you might be prejudiced. But let's take a look at the statistics used in the story. For whatever reason, the author singled out Nassau County for his example. The data he uses is police data. It says that the combination of black and Latino residents makes up just under 30% of the county's population, yet accounts for half of the traffic stops. Well, that is disproportionate. The story goes on to add that the same groups also account for 61% of arrests, 60% of field interviews, and 69% of pat downs. But it doesn't say if any of those are related to traffic stops, and none of those statistics are relevant anyway without the initial traffic stop, which is what the state is trying to end. So 30% of the population gets pulled over 50% of the time. Then what happens? Well, in Nassau County, white drivers average 1.3 tickets per stop. Black drivers average two tickets per stop, and Latino drivers average 2.1 tickets per stop. Tickets can obviously contain more than one infraction, otherwise the average would have to be less than one, assuming not everyone gets a ticket. So, because of that, when we factor in warnings and still come up with averages above one, we can assume that once somebody gets pulled over, police can find more than the original infraction. But without knowing how many warnings were given to each racial group, we can't place a lot of value on the ticket averages either. While black and Latino drivers make up 30% of the population, but get pulled over 50% of the time, still equates to a mere 0.75 difference in tickets being issued. Less than one difference. Oddly absent from the cited statistics. Asian drivers. Not a word about Asian drivers. Were they lumped in with the Caucasians? They lumped blacks and Hispanics together. Maybe there are no Asian drivers in Nassau County, New York. I'm going to look that up.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

He's gonna look it up. He's really gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

You can't handle the truth.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

According to NY.gov, 13.2% of the population of Nassau County in 2023 was Asian. 2% more than black people. I wonder how many traffic tickets they get, and why those statistics aren't available or why they weren't used in the story. Maybe Asians get so few traffic tickets that the numbers are insignificant. As I said that, I could almost hear the surprised gasps of hundreds of comedians who've made a joke about Asian drivers. So maybe Asian drivers get so many tickets that it skewed the statistics in such a way that just bringing up the subject conjures up images of a Chinese driver struggling to see over the dashboard of his Chrysler. In any case, there seems to be some data missing from this narrative. The bottom line is this bill doesn't do anything to promote equity. It simply removes the illusion of inequity. Even if equity was a worthwhile goal, this bill, written in the name of equity, is a failure from all directions. It assumes that not enforcing laws will somehow create a more level playing field when the field is already level. Using population proportions is not an appropriate measure of equality when it comes to crime. Assuming that crime levels among races will be proportional is a narrow-minded way to approach the subject to begin with, considering all of the ways our government treats different races differently. The Trump administration is working to remove race-based variables from the way we're treated, but the resistance is deeply ingrained into our government bureaucracy. When an entire state uses race as an excuse to not enforce existing laws, that just digs us into a deeper hole. If traffic stops were really a problem that had significant disparity among races, then the only solution is to issue more tickets to white and Asian people to make it look more equal. After all, the difference is less than 1%. It shouldn't be that hard to pull over a couple more white people every month. But instead, the state would rather make everyone less safe and let people get away with breaking the law so they can look like they're doing something to benefit a specific group of people. That's the new definition of state-sponsored racism. And it's at the expense of the fiscal and physical safety of the majority of the people of the state of New York.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Let's go back through the listening tube for this week.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Oh, uh, sorry, Booth Announcer Lady, we don't have time for history this week because we have a special guest this week. We'll get to that in a moment.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

The listening tube will return at the speed of sound. Send email to thelistening tube at outlook.com.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

My guest this week is the embodiment of the legendary Swiss Army knife. A colonel in the Swiss Army, member of Parliament, and author of a book about pirates, Matthias Mueller spent some time in the listening tube, where we talked about all of those things and more. Colonel Mueller, you seem to have all the qualities of a of a believing of a living Swiss Army knife. A colonel in the Swiss Army, a psychologist, author, practitioner of Stoic philosophy. You seem to be a well very well-rounded individual. What drives you?

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Thank you very much. Well first, thank you to have me on your podcast, which is a great honor for me. And thank you for calling me a Swiss Army knife. This is uh compliment. Well, it's true. I I I wear many hats and I'm I'm very interested in a lot of things. And what drives me is I think I I'll try to be a better person every day. And I'm very curious in a lot of things, and I think uh we have to be interested in all different in all different things like uh like psychology, philosophy, and so on. And I think that helps us to under to understand maybe how the world works a little bit better and to become a better person and to make hopefully the world also a little bit a better place. But it's yeah, I'm I'm very a very curious person, very interested in a lot of things. And I think also it's my duty as a as a citizen to be engaged in society. If if I have if I have capabilities, I think it's our duties as human beings to to serve our community in which whatever way we we are able to do.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Now, there are a couple of things I'd like to speak with you about, but first I'd like to touch on stoic philosophy. When I was in seventh grade, I decided I wasn't going to get mad anymore. Because when you're mad, you're more likely to do or say things that you would not normally do or say. Is that stoicism?

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Well, it's a part of stoicism. This is it's a very important thing that you just uh mentioned. This, like, it's what it's called, like it's emotional control, and often stoics people say stoics are people who have no emotions. This is not true. Stoics are people who try to control their emotions, they're very aware of their emotions. We are very emotional people, even as a stoic, but we don't try to control them because it's exactly what you said. When you are angry, you start doing stuff that you later regret because you act out of emotions. And the same thing is if you're happy, you might do stuff because you're so euphoric that maybe later you will regret. So, this is part of stoic philosophy to be able to be aware of your emotions and also try. I always say try because it's difficult, it's not always easy, but to try to control your emotions.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Some of the other parts of stoicism are naturalism and virtue. What are most val what are the most valuable parts of stoicism in today's society?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Well, I think one is that the part we talked already a little bit about it, is about emotions and control. It's one thing I really like is the dichotomy of control. To start being aware of what lies within my power and whatnot. Where do I have control over and where don't I have any control? And so I think a lot of people they get emotional and angry or stressed about things they have, they don't even have control over it. And so if you think rationally, it makes no sense to get angry about something you have no control. So, and if you have control, then it makes no sense to get angry neither because you have control, so do something instead of getting angry. I always take the example of like if you're in a you know, if you're on the highway with the car and and and and you're like in a traffic jam and it doesn't it doesn't move, and you get angry because you have an appointment at a certain time and you realize I will not make it on time. Well, why get angry? You cannot change it, it's out of your control. And there is this with a lot of things in our life, people get too emotional about stuff they don't control, and that's why that's one thing, this dichotomy of control. And another thing I think is very important too is what uh Nietzsche called amorfati, which means embrace your faith, like your your what happens to you, you know, like like not just accept what happens to you, but embrace it because it happens to you, it's your life, it's unique, so make the best out of it. Don't don't be somebody who's like, Oh, why does this happen to me? Why I'm always the unlucky one. No, be happy about what happens to you and try to make the best out of you. Then another thing I like is memento mori, this being aware of our own mortality. I think we have in our society nowadays, we we have a uh a very uh problematic relationship with death. Like we don't, it's it's something we don't want to hear, we don't want to talk about, death is far away. But I think if we're aware that we're mortals, we are living more intense, we enjoy the moment more, we we appreciate the moment more if we start realizing we are mortals. And I I would like to tell a little story here where the memum mementum or comes from, also, and and I love that story because you know in the Roman Empire, in the in the Roman Empire, when the Roman generals when they came back from uh and they were successful, they had they fought a battle and they won the battles, they were celebrated, they went through Rome and people were celebrating them. And and you know, you have to imagine you're like the the the general, you're on the on your chariot, and everybody's celebrating you. It's the it's the best moment of your life, you're like on top of the world, you're like the hero, you won a battle, everybody's celebrating you. And they had behind the general, there was a simple soldier just standing behind this general on his chariot while he was celebrating. And the soldier's mission, all he had to do is tell him every couple minutes, memento mori, just think you're more you're you're mortal. Just in and I think this is so beautiful in this moment of like this triumph, somebody brings you down to earth and says, Enjoy your moment, it's your moment, but don't forget, you will die as we all do. So I think this is very important. And of course, you talked about you said it also already the ver uh the virtues. Trying to live a virtuous life, I think that is also something that is very important that we can learn from this this uh stoic philosophy.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

I lived in West Berlin back when there was a wall around it. I was uh stationed there as a member of the American Air Force. While the United States is often recognized as a beacon of freedom, I witnessed some different types of freedoms while I was there. For example, prostitution and the ability to play frisbee in a public park while not wearing any clothes. Now, I'm not saying I'm against any of that. It's one might consider that naturalism. But how does the facet of virtue, which is an important part of Stoicism, reconcile with those types of freedoms?

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, the um there's four cardinal virtues in Stoicism. One is courage, one is justice, more more called fairness, I would say. Justice sounds very like legal, legal like legal term, but it's fairness, temperance, and there is wisdom. And so everything you do, you can every action you take, every decision you can date, you can ask yourself, is this a courageous decision? Is this a wise decision? Do I live temperance here or am I am I extreme? Or and and if you think about it, if you're running around naked, this is already against temperance, according to me. This is already going out in an extreme. You have you do more, you know what I mean? Like this, you exaggerate already. And the stoics were like, don't exaggerate, be like, always remind yourself is this like uh reasonable what you do or not? And a part of the thing is also stoics don't really judge other people, they judge themselves first. They try it's like if if somebody runs around naked, okay, that's their decision. I'm not gonna do it because I know also there's people who feel offended when I do that, and I respect also the other other people, so that's part of the freedom. And I think what what you experienced in in West Germany is something that I think, or in in Berlin back then, is something we see nowadays a lot in our society. Uh with some people who have to they they they think they're entitled to do whatever they want to do, and everybody else has to accept it. And I think that is where temperance comes in. It's not reasonable, it's not a temper can you say that a temperate um action? I don't know if you can say that. Sure, that makes sense. Yeah, but that's how I would describe it. And if you Yeah, it's at the end you have to be clear with yourself, and that's what counts. Because again, what do you have under control? It's yourself, it's your consciousness that you have under control. If other people run around naked, they have to live with it. They will not be happy at the end.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Moving on, sir. Are you proud to be from Switzerland?

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yes, yes, of course. I mean, I'm let's say like this. I'm very, very lucky to have be a to have been born in Switzerland. It's there's some countries when you're born there, you won the lottery. I mean, you can be born in a much in a place where you're you're there's nothing to eat or there's war and everything. And Switzerland is a very, very good place to live. It has a lot of miss there's also a lot of stuff that we should make better, I think. But maybe proud is not the right word. I'm I'm I'm glad. I'm I'm I'm lucky, I'm thankful that I'm born here. Proud, I cannot be proud of something my in some way. I I'm proud of stuff that I did. If I contributed something to my country, I I'm I'm proud I did that because I did my duty. And I think that's something, and I hope I'm a good citizen, and I hope I do my I do something that Switzerland stays as good as it is or gets better even. And um, but I'm thanksful and I'm grateful to to be Swiss.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Is is being proud of your origin a form of nationalism? And does that label have a negative connotation where you live?

SPEAKER_02 23:33

How can we be proud of something we didn't do anything for? It's just pure luck. It's not my doing. I think it's good to be patriotic, but I don't think it's good to be nationalistic. I I make the difference. I think patriot uh as a nationalist, you think you're better than everybody else. I'm not better as a Swiss than the because I'm Swiss. I think I'm I can I'm but I'm honored and I'm I'm thankful to be here. And so I try to do my duty I have to my country. But I think pride is is a very delicate, a very delicate thing. And we know it's one of the deadly sins, also. So why it's always like uh I think we can be proud of our achievements, but we should not be thinking we're something better just because we have a we were lucky to be born at in someplace.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

In addition to being in the Swiss Army, you are also a member, uh part of the cantonal parliament there, which could also be described as the the legislature for comparison purposes. On what side of the political spectrum do you fall? Or are the lines of demarcation less vivid in the Swiss form of government than they are, say, here in the United States?

SPEAKER_02 24:52

No, I think they're not less vivid. The big difference is that we have more parties. So there's more nuanced. So we have also a left and a right block, I would say. Like I'm I don't like this left-right uh rhetoric anyway. It's like I don't think it's it's we have I call it more like there's always authoritarian and there's more classical liberal. I'm I don't like that the in the US when you say liberal, it means like left-wing socialist, but I I talk about classical liberalism. So the there's like this authoritarian side and maybe the more liberal side, which more the right side and the and and maybe the the more statist side is the left. So we have I'm I'm uh in the conservative party. I'm in the this called the Swish Swiss People Party, and it's the um it's often decried as like this the most right wing, extremist, whatever, but that's like everything that's more now a little bit right of the center, is anyway right wing nowadays. I have the feeling. So I'm in the in this in this party, it's the biggest party in Switzerland. We have about 30 percent, and then there we have other parties that are more on the right side, and there is the social democrat party, is the biggest one on the left, together with the green. They there's another party, the green, and so we have about seven, eight parties who share the power. The Swiss People's Party is the biggest one, and I consider myself like a um, I would say I'm a very libertarian-minded people, like classical liberalism, minimal state, and more as much as possible, more as lot much of many, as much freedom as possible for the individual, and no nanny state, like really just like this a minimal state, and that's where I stand, like conservative, libertarian.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

And is it more difficult to establish a governing entity when you have more than two political parties?

SPEAKER_02 26:50

No, I don't think so. I think actually it helps. We're forced to find compromise because you never have a clear majority. If you have two parties, one has the majority and they can decide. In Switzerland, as I said, we're the strongest party, but we are 30%. So at the end, we need to compromise with others who have maybe 15% and 8% and so on. And so everybody has to try to work together for to if you want to achieve something. And I think that's a very uh for that point. I I like I like it more when there's maybe more parties, even though sometimes it's like a little bit you you think like, yeah, but they're are they not the same, or there's like sometimes only a little bit nuance that are different, but no, we have to find compromise, and that's something in Switzerland is is very strong. You know, we also don't have a a prime minister or a president. We we don't like the concentration of power. So we have always even on cantonal level, we have it on on federal level, we have seven, always seven uh ministers who share at the end the executive power, and they have to share it together. And again, they're not from the same party, they're all from the three, four biggest parties, and they have to find consensus in with within their seven, which is a very interesting system, makes it sometimes a little bit slow, but at the end, everybody can stand behind it more or less.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

That that was going to be my next question. Uh, you know, having uh a shared power structure like that, I would imagine, can often lead to uh roadblocks as far as getting things done rather than lead to avenues of of getting things done. Is that how does how is that overcome?

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Yeah, it it that is actually a little bit the problem. I wouldn't say it's a problem. I think actually it's a good thing because what happens like and and I compare it a lot if I compare with Germany. Germany, they go ahead. They're they they have there's the new if they have a new um chancellor, new government, then they go ahead and they run forward. And in Switzerland, we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we have to discuss first, we have to find conscience, we we go slower. But then what happens? The Germans they make a mistake and they have to come back while we are walking slowly forward. We're making much less fast mistakes than others, and so we have to correct much less. Of course, sometimes we're a little bit slower, but you know what? We're getting there too, just one step at a time. And uh and what it is also is for the I think for the uh peace within the society, it's uh it's much better if you find consensus within several parties, whereas the left, the right, the center are all involved, and sometimes the left wins a little bit more, sometimes the right wins a little bit more. But for the people, which we is the sovereign in Switzerland, for the people, you don't you never feel as a loser. Because once once maybe your party loses a little bit, but next time you're on the winning side. But if you have a government for four years, a majority government, if you're not with the this party who is running the country, for four years you're a loser. And if you if it happens that you're this party wins again, so another four years you're on the loser side, and and you that that's depressing. And one thing we do also in Switzerland, of course, is that we can vote about everything. That's one of the best things I think we do. That we that the power, the final power lies always within the people.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

California, the uh our state of California, it's a Republic of California, actually has a similar government policy where anybody can put something on the ballot if they get enough signatures and enough support to do so. And then the people get to vote on that issue, whatever that, whatever that issue may be. I've always wondered though, if we can do that, why do we even need the government representatives to begin with, if if the people are going to vote on everything anyway?

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Yeah, it's that's a good question. It's a good question. And um the thing is like this, we handle it like that. It's we every every citizen, as you said, as in California, in Switzerland, we you need 100,000 signatures, and you can propose uh whatever, uh change of the uh of the constitution, you can propose a law. That's on federal level. On canton level, it's a little bit different, it's 10,000, 8,000, depends on how big the canton is. So every citizen can propose whatever if he finds the 100,000 signatures, and we vote about it. Then there is, if the government decides to change a law, if you don't agree with that law, you can collect 50,000 signatures, and we have to vote on that new law. So what that happens sometimes, but a lot of time, most of the times, people agree with what the government does. But the government is also, or the parliament, this if they're very careful also what they decide, because they know oh, if the people don't like it, if we're too extreme, they're gonna collect 50,000 signatures. And again, it's like you know exactly oh, that is maybe the left won't like it. This the right, the right won't like it, so we have to adapt it because we we don't want that. Hopefully, they they don't make a referendum because then everything is again gets slower, and there's always a risk that it's gonna be that the people will vote against it. So it's a control mechanism, I think. And from that point, it's good to have a the parliament is okay, but they're much more careful in what they decide because they know uh we are observed by the people and they can still change the course of the uh direction we're taking by making a for a referendum. What is funny though is we vote four times a year, it's four always four weekends we go vote, and there's every weekend there, and then on this four weekends, about four, four, five, six different topics, and then maybe not even some cantonal topics. So there's a lot, and sometimes it's really you know, like sometimes it's really funny stuff that is voted about. I just I always give an example for people. It's uh there was a there was a guy who who said he thinks it's not correct that the cows that farmer cut some farmer cut the horns of the cows. He thought and that doesn't it doesn't hurt the cows, it's like they do it that they don't hurt each other when they're in the in in the barn. So that guy thought, like, I think that's not correct. Cows should have horns. He collected a hundred thousand signatures, and switzerland voted about it if if farmers are allowed to cut the horns of cows or not. Swiss people said at the end, yes, they're allowed to do it. But it's sometimes it's funny about what we talk, but on the other hand, it makes people also feel that they're part of it. They're not just governed, they're part of it. They're they feel that they're also they have a say. And I think that's very important to that people are not frustrated after a while. They know we can change something. All I need to do is collect 100,000 signatures, which is not that difficult nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

So it's it sounds like uh you're very happy with the form of government there in Switzerland.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah, I I think it's a very good form of government. I think we should really preserve it. And there's always there are powers who try to centralize. There's in the last 30 years, also in Switzerland, there's more and more centralization, there's more regulation. We also, you know, there's also the European Union, which we were not, we are not member of, thank God. I'm really glad that we're not, and but we still there's a lot of pressure from the European Union who who try because they don't like they don't like that there's that little small country who who does everything on their own, and they try to push us in certain direction. And there are political powers here that would love to see the government having more to say than the people. Because there's yeah, there's political movements who who think people are too ignorant, too, too stupid, they need to be governed by the by a strong state, and there are others who say no, it's the people can are smart enough to do it themselves. And um maybe well also two important things uh that's where is very unique in Switzerland, and which I'm also glad is we're we're we're neutral, and we our military force is a is a mandatory conscript army, like we still have instead like most other European countries, they abolished mandatory military service. We still have it, and our military is also a purely defense force. Like we we we because we're neutral, all we do is we defend our country. We're not in NATO or anything. We we don't make any uh we don't go abroad, well, very limited for a little bit of peacekeeping sometimes, but but our forces are really to defend the country.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Tell me about the Swiss Guard at the Vatican. What how how who gets chosen for that duty?

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Yeah, that's that's a very that's a good that's a good question, and it's a very honorable job. It's um well first thing you have to be there's there's one thing, you have to be Catholic, you have to be a devout Catholic. You cannot go there as a Protestant or another religion or atheist or something. You have to be a devout Catholic. That's the first thing. The second thing is you did you you have to be able to make the military service, so you had to do the recruit school, you had to do military service, so you yeah, that's the second thing, and so and I think I'm not 100 100 sure anymore, but I think there's also a uh uh body size limit, like you have to be a certain size that it looks, I mean, which I understand, they cannot with their nice uniforms and everything, it has to look good, and you have to be willing to s to do that for a certain amount of time. Till now, there's no women that do that, and you need to prove that you're a devout Catholic. So you need a bishop or or some authority that says, Yes, I sponsor this person to go to the Vatican as a guard, and uh yeah, it's a very honorable thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

I'm a little bit confused. I I understand that you know they're they're guarding literally guarding the Vatican, but you never see them with any weapons, or or am I just missing them?

SPEAKER_02 37:40

No, no, you miss them. The thing is, what we see is when we see them in their old, um, I think they're like from the 15th century or something, the uniforms, that's when they're when they it's basically a tourist attraction. But what we what you don't see is when they're when they're actually on duty uh or protecting uh have certain uh yeah, certain duties, then they're like in in a suit. They have pistols, they have rifles, they they do have they have close combat, um, they're training close combat and all this stuff. So they have different missions and duties when they're there. Like when you're outside and the tourists can see you, you're in the nice, you have this beautiful uniform, and it's very I heard it's very, very hard. Like you have to be you really have to train to stand there for for an hour or whatever. They stand there just not moving and and so, but they do other stuff too, like where they're in in other clothes and then they have pistols and all stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

Now you're a fan of pirates. Yes. Now, are you talking about modern day pirates or the romanticized pirates of legend? Or or both, yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

No, like well, we can we can talk about both, but what I'm talking about is mostly the pirates of the golden age, which the golden age was like around 1650 to about 1720, 1730. That's like that was the golden age of the piracy. That what I what I'm talking mostly about. And there's more and more historians who come out with with new knowledge about this pirate movement back then. They found out that that they were they're very misunderstood nowadays because we what we see in pirates today, or what is said, we think they're purely criminals, they're they pillage, they they kill, and so on. And that's a an image that is not correct. What we have to know is that they invented a lot of stuff, which is incredible if we see we if you think about it, and they were basically the forerunners of the Enlightenment period, which was which was the the starting point also of the American Revolution and the French Revolution, was basically already initiated by the pirates in the early 18th and late 17th century. It was, I always say it's almost like it was a a uh a pilot project. It was a they tried out certain things, but it was after 100 years later, it it actually happened with the American and the French Revolution. Because they lived this liberty, uh they lived, they they did that already, this pursuit of happiness, this um all that stuff, they lived. And it was a very democratic movement. And and that's what what uh what I really like about it. If you start studying them, you realize they were not as as violent as we describe them today. They were actually kind of like escaping a society that was very suppressive, and they tried to build up a new society, new ideals, which were very similar to the ideas of the founding fathers.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Of course, in the military, we we have ranks, and on a ship, I'm sure they had ranks. You know, you had the captain of the ship. So was there a lot of could you earn your way to the top? Um, uh unlike in many of many uh governments and societies at that time, you really couldn't. You had no option. You were stuck wherever it was, you whatever status you were born in is where you remained. But the pirates changed that dynamic, didn't they?

SPEAKER_02 41:17

Yes, and that's exactly the thing. It was it was mostly people who is who were stuck with their status. It was the poor, it was they had no chance to get a to to do anything, and they escaped on sea. And so, what as a captain, and that's a very interesting uh idea they had. It is the crew elected the captain, so they did have hierarchies, but the hierarchy worked, they they you were elected, like in a democracy. So they said, So um you, Bob, you are we think you're the best leader, you're the best captain. We elect you as the captain. We vote for Joe to be our quartermaster, who had the same power, actually. One was the chief operation, one was more the chief uh the interior. So, but they had the same power, so they had this um already this idea that not one person has the pure powers, and there were two who had to share it, it was interesting. And then they they had all these different um jobs, but you were elected, and when you were elected, you could also be not elected anymore, like you could also be they could have if if you treated your people not in a good way, the pirates said, you know what? No, no, no, we elect now somebody else, and you go back as a normal pirate in the ranks. So that's that was the thing, but what we cannot forget, and some people think so say something, yeah. But how did that go when they attacked another ship or something? You cannot that it's not democratic. So that's that's true. So as soon as the operation started, as soon as they had the attack, of course, they had the clear hierarchy, there was command and well, as we do in the military, but before and after, they were democratic, and they shared also the treasure that they found or that they caught that they the stuff they robbed, they shared it, and it's a very interesting thing. Also, they had rules, how much who gets what? And if you think nowadays, you would you look at a Fortune 500 companies, it's like the CEO gets like 500 times more than the average employee, which is I'm a I'm I'm a pure, I'm a capitalist and everything, but this is ridiculous. Nobody can earn it's 500 times more important than than some average employee. So they had it, they had it very simple. Something like the the captain gets two two parts, the the cook gets one and a half parts, the doctor gets one and a half, the and so they had this like, but it was like one to two parts, not 500 to one. And so they had a lot of such things. They had health insurance, which is amazing. They invented health and accidents insurance in the 17th century, which is amazing. We we a lot of countries don't even have it today.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

That book title again is Pirates: The Art of Pushing Boundaries by Matthias Mueller, currently available in German. Many thanks to Colonel Mueller for that insightful and informative conversation. The listening tube is written and produced by yours truly, copyright 2025. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. Support the show or use your phone to text me from the home page. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for Val at Infinitum.