Season 4, Episode 13 March 26, 2023 Janine Marie

 S4E13

Well, hello! Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, we’ll hear about the last American battleship, Three Mile Island, and Sovereign Citizens. But first, (not the headlines)!

Odds are you’ve seen an old movie or television program where a man is being executed by firing squad. It’s probably a black and white program, and the guy’s got a blindfold on, and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He’s either the bad guy and his execution feels justified, or the anti-hero, and his tragic end makes you feel sympathy for the character. Standing there, tied to a post, hands behind his back. Bravely facing his fate, despite the blindfold, but at least he’s not getting cigarette smoke in his eyes. That would be really annoying, especially when you’re about to die by firing squad. With any luck, you already had a last meal and a final shot of whiskey. Now you’re standing there, wearing black pants and a white shirt with puffy sleeves. There are four or five executioners pointing rifles at you, one of them has a live bullet, while the others have blanks. None of the executioners know who has the live ammunition. That way, none of them knows who actually killed the man sentenced to death by firing squad. It’s a win-win. The guilty party dies, and nobody has any guilt. Unless, of course, the guy with the real bullet is a bad shot. It sure would suck if you were being executed by firing squad and the guy with the actual bullet shoots you in the leg. And you can’t even fall down ‘cause you’re tied to a pole with your hands tied behind your back. Maybe that’s why we keep looking for a better, more efficient way to kill our most deserving criminals, even if they somehow garner a popular following and endear themselves to the public. After the firing squad came the electric chair, then chemical injections, which somehow made the death more like falling asleep than being executed. It was more humane, getting injected with chemicals than getting injected with hot lead. However, there are currently three states in the United States that allow a convict sentenced to death to be killed by firing squad if the chemicals needed for an injected execution are not available. Well, sometimes you gotta work with the tools you have. An AP story by Rebecca Boone says there are four states that have the firing squad method of execution currently, but South Carolina’s option is currently on hold until a judge decides if it’s allowed there. But Mississippi, Utah and Oklahoma are all set if the method is needed. Perhaps the murder of four college students by a man from Pennsylvania influenced the decision for Idaho to pass a bill with a veto-proof majority to allow the firing squad to execute and execution (see what I did there?), if, of course, the required chemicals are not available. Now, you might be thinking, “Gee, Bob, why wouldn’t those chemicals be available? Can’t we just get them from China?” Well, some states might be. They don’t disclose where they get the drugs they need to kill by lethal injection in a humane, painless way. When you think about it, you could probably inject a lot of things into a body that would kill it, but not in a way that wouldn’t cause suffering. So states have come up with a variety of drug combinations they can use if certain drugs are not available. The reason they might not be available is because once the press finds out who is supplying the prison with the drugs, they publish it, and then the company is compelled to stop supplying it by intimidation from those of us who are willing to take the steps needed to argue against capital punishment. Company’s don’t like the bad publicity and bend to the pressure. So the answer to the drug supply possibly drying up is to reintroduce past methods of execution like firing squads. Not to worry in Mississippi or Oklahoma, though. Those two states say they have plenty of execution juice ready to go. South Carolina’s law, currently on hold, gives the convict the choice of firing squad or electric chair if lethal injection chemicals aren’t available. It’s nice to have options. But what if you want to be executed by suffocation? Well, in seven states, you’re in luck! Well, make it eight. Because in seven states, you can be executed by lethal gas, which is the same as suffocation, but without somebody holding a pillow over your face, and New Hampshire, you could be hanged, but only if you’ve already been sentenced to be hanged. There’s one guy in line, and the state no longer allows anybody else to be put in the line. So while lethal injection is the most popular way to administer the ultimate punishment, Idaho is among many states that have discovered the need to find alternatives. Those alternatives didn’t come from advanced technology. We haven’t figured out better ways to kill people humanely. Maybe because there is no humane way to kill someone. It’s a terrible thing to do. It takes a special type of person to kill somebody else, whether it’s a crime or the result of a crime. Some killers get joy from their action, but the jailer is required to kill. Maybe there’s a way to make an execution more humane for the jailer who has to kill the killer. All of the execution methods currently in use, lethal injection and gas, the electric chair, firing squad and hanging all require an innocent man to take an action that kills the person sentenced to die. Then that person has to live with the guilt of killing another human. Maybe we should be more worried about that person than we are about the convict. Perhaps the person sentenced to death could be casually led into an elevator that has a trap door that will open and drop the prisoner into a tank of sharks with laser beams. 

If you would still like to break the law, but don’t want to go to extremes, just go to England and whistle at a girl. A bill in the House of Commons will make it an offense to “wolf-whistle” or make sexual remarks to a woman, even if you believe it to be a compliment. A story in the Telegraph says the bill will outlaw “intentional harassment,, alarm or distress” to a person based on their sex. Well, now, that seems fair. It says based on your sex, but it doesn’t say which sex, so I imagine both are included. However, that’s not what the supporters of the bill say. They see it as strictly a law aimed at the behavior of men. Just to make sure, the Home Secretary is backing an amendment that will close a loophole that may have allowed a person to claim they didn’t realize their behavior was a violation of the law. The amendment will require a “reasonable test” to determine if a defendant should have known that what they’re accused of doing was harassment. The author of the story included this paragraph, “This means anyone who catcalls, wolf-whistles or makes a pass or sexual comment towards a woman that a “reasonable” person would feel amounts to harassment will no longer be able to claim it was meant as a compliment or joke. Police will be issued with guidance so they can enforce the law.”

So it appears that the law doesn’t apply to women, which, in the United States, would be ruled unconstitutional because it’s sexist. The way the law is written would suggest it applies to women as well as men, but it’s unlikely the law will ever be enforced against a woman. With that in mind, I encourage all women in the United Kingdom to sexually harass all the men you want. You are more than welcome to whistle at them, make crude remarks when they walk by, and ask if they have a porch to go with that swing. Do it while you can, before men realize that the law also applies to women! Because the last thing men want is women letting them know in an obvious fashion that they find them attractive. We don’t want to be deprived of the experience of trying to figure out if one of you likes us. We couldn’t live without the challenge of risking total embarrassment by making a gesture of interest only to be dismissed with a wave of your hand. Men might find it incomprehensible to be whistled at and told how attractive we are by some random woman. When I look back at any time a woman let it be obvious she found me attractive, and there have been a few of those occasions, they generally turned out very well. However, I can see how some women might find themselves unable to accept the fact that a man finds them attractive. They might be married, and aren’t interested in your opinion of their aesthetics. But to make a law so vague as to discourage a display of attraction will only result in complaints about men who looked at a woman in the wrong way, or at the wrong place, and probably a lower birth rate. Look, I realize there’s a line somewhere between showing someone you’re interested in them and harassment. The fact is, some men are more civilized than others, and this law will punish those men who haven’t learned other ways to express desire. Not everyone is a smooth operator. Some men have different ideas of what will attract a woman, and the truth is, women are attracted in different ways. Nobody likes to be harassed, but everyone likes to be appreciated, and being found attractive is often appreciated. When the “reasonableness” becomes a measure of law, when law interferes with romance, when a compliment can be ruled a violation of the law, it makes me wonder if such a law is meant to protect women or prevent them from finding suitable mates to procreate. Not every man can be James Bond. You shouldn’t make laws that prevent the rest of us from giving a beautiful woman the opportunity to become a victim of some master-criminal. Now that I think about it, half of the James Bond movies might be outlawed because of the pick-up lines used by 007! So it’s not just those of us who have no other means to express our interest but a wolf-whistle. Even the legendary 007 would be a law-breaker in today’s England, if the bill becomes law. I guess I’ll have to stop introducing myself as Woodley, Bob Woodley. From now on, “Hey, you” will have to suffice. 

Let’s go back liner

1826

Samuel Morey patents the internal combustion engine. How many more years will it last until it’s obsolete? Will the electric vehicle ever fully replace the gas-powered cars and trucks? Maybe. But I think some states and federal government entities are too optimistic about when we’ll be able to make that happen. I’m still hoping hydrogen engines will come to fruition before we master the electric option, because I don’t think we’ll ever master the electric option.

1915

Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, is put in quarantine, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

1948

Military forces, under direction of the Russian-controlled government in East Germany, set-up a land blockade of West Berlin. The result was the Berlin Airlift, an exhausting and long-lasting air campaign to supply West Berlin with supplies. History dot com says and allied supply plane landed in the isolated city every 30 seconds, adding up to almost 300-thousand flights. Each of those flights carrying between 5-thousand and 8-thousand tons of supplies.

1957

The BBC broadcasts the spaghetti tree hoax on its current affairs program Panorama. It was an elaborate hoax that included footage of a family in Italy harvesting spaghetti from their own trees, and even a talk about how to get the trees to grow the perfect length of the crop, as well as indicating that the crop was good that year because of a mild winter and the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil. Now, back in 1957, about half of England had television sets, and spaghetti wasn’t a common food at the time. In fact, some considered it a delicacy. The day after the hoax, many called the tv station to inquire about one of two things: was the story legitimate, or how can I grow my own spaghetti tree. Those who asked the latter were advised to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".

1967

The United States Department of Transportation begins operation. And through some miracle, it’s still operating. Even though our current Secretary of Transportation was only appointed because he’s gay. He had no related experience, other than being a mayor. In the meantime, we’ve had supply chain issues, trains derailing, airplanes nearly colliding on runways, and this push for electric vehicles, otherwise knows as coal-powered cars, that our country just isn’t ready for or willing to fully embrace. But that’s what happens when you appoint somebody to an important position based not on their abilities, but on their sexual preference.

1979

Operators of Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 nuclear reactor outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania fail to recognize that a relief valve in the primary coolant system has stuck open following an unexpected shutdown. As a result, enough coolant drains out of the system to allow the core to overheat and partially melt down. I have an uncle and his family who live in Middletown, Pennsylvania, near the site, and they wasted no time getting out of the area. Conversely, my dad, who was an iron worker, ended up on the clean-up crew at the site after the event. They were only allowed to be inside the enclosed area for 20 minutes at at time, even with protective clothing. Then they had to come out, get undressed, and spend 40 minutes outside before they were allowed to put on more protective clothing and go back in for another 20 minutes. So there was a lot of down time. My dad too the opportunity to fashion a belt buckle out of scraps of metal lying around. It’s mostly stainless steel, with red glass beads that look like rubies on it, surrounded by thin metal rope. It’s something a 1970’s cowboy might wear. Anyway, he gave it to me, and I still have it. I don’t use it, ‘cause I don’t want radioactivity anywhere near my belt buckle area. Although a glow in the dark penis might come in handy.

1992

The USS Missouri, the last active United States Navy battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California. So, we haven’t had a battleship since 1992?

Look that up liner

As it turns out, we don’t need battleships anymore. According to a variety of sources, including a military website called sofrep dot com, the changing face of warfare has changed the types of ships we need to build. There was a time when ships would battle each other on the open ocean, and the ship with the thickest armor and the biggest guns would win the battle. But now, we can launch guided missiles to a target at sea from a ship hundreds of miles away, or even from land-based sites. The best way to avoid getting your ship sunk is to shoot the other one before it sees you. Satellite technology and other advances in detection and location have made the most powerful ships ever built a memory for many, and an tourist attraction for others.

2009

Twelve gunmen attack the Manawan Police Academy in Lahore, Pakistan. Now it happens in Atlanta, Georgia, but they use rocks and molotov cocktails and bring lawyers with them. Plus, most of them are shipped in from other states, and even other countries. I wonder who pays for their travel, accommodations, food, and all the black clothing and masks, as well as the materials to make the weapons they use. Maybe somebody should be working on that.

Phone and email liner

Part of the privileged of being an American is your freedom to be yourself, as long as you’re not hurting anyone else. Sure, there are victimless crimes, but in general, Americans can let their freak flags fly! Be who you want to be! Show us what makes you unique! You wanna have green hair? Go ahead! You want a face full of tattoos and piercings to the point that your mother won’t recognize you? Have at it! As an American, you’re free to sell all your stuff and buy an RV and travel the country, without so much as a permanent address. Well, maybe a post office box somewhere. Sure, we’re a nation of laws, but most of our laws are justified, and serve a purpose of public safety, privacy and a whole host of other purposes, like record-keeping and family law. It’s possible there are countries that have fewer laws and more freedoms than the United States, but nowhere but in America are you supported for, and often encouraged to, be as different from everyone else as you want. It may be in the way you look, the way you think, your approach to a problem. We’re all different in some way, and many of us have an easier time standing out. Some of us don’t want to stand out at all, but when they’re alone in the privacy of their own home, you know those bashful people are probably doing some wild stuff. Sometimes it’s the people who don’t want to stand out who are the most unique. We just don’t know it until they decide to reveal it, say, by announcing an amazing discovery they made in their home laboratory, or the police find a body in their basement. Either way, what makes you unique is celebrated in the United States. Many people who are born here and grow up here don’t realize or fully understand that part of what makes America itself unique, while other people from around the world know exactly what it means and want to come here for the opportunity to be who they want to be. However, there are people in America for whom those freedoms are not enough. There are those who claim to be not subject to the laws and regulations of the country in which they live at all. They are sovereign entities with no commitment nor obligation to any legal or municipal authority. They call themselves American State Nationals or Sovereign Citizens. According to an article on Heavy dot com, they believe they aren’t citizens of an illegitimate, tyrannical federal government. The irony is that in America, you’re free to believe the government is illegitimate and tyrannical, but you still have to follow the rules the rest of us follow while you think that. But their thought has turned to action, or inaction, depending upon the specific scenario. For example, they won’t take the action of registering their car with the state department of vehicles, but they’ll take the action of creating their own license plate proclaiming “American State Citizen” or “Private automobile, not for hire.” Now something like that is sure to draw the interest of the police, but these American State Nationals don’t recognize the states right to require vehicle registration, nor the requirement of a driver’s license. They believe that the Constitution gives them the right to travel, as long as they are not participating in commerce, without documentation of any kind but a passport, which they will then claim is not them. A recent encounter with police, predicated by a home made license plate, led to a 25-year-old man being shot by Utah police. He was later pronounced dead at a local hospital. A statement from his family says the traffic stop resulted in the “brutal murder... at the hands of 5 Farmington Police officers, with them shooting him while he was still in his automobile and likely terrified for his safety.”

It’s a sad ending to a traffic stop to be sure. “He was... (a graduate of) Utah State University. He has been studying law the last few years and was a patriot doing what he could to defend the people’s freedom and liberty in his community.” While freedom and liberty are certainly worthy attributes, they are accompanied by responsibilities. Responsibilities are the part of the equation the sovereign citizens are forgetting. They’re trying to twist the Constitution and subsequent laws to absolve them of any legal responsibilities they deem are in violation of the words that bring order to society. But, to their credit, they’re trying to do it by using the very laws from which they claim to be exempt! One law they often cite is from Title 18, U.S. Code 241: Conspiracy against rights. To paraphrase it, it says that if two or more people work together to prevent you from enjoying your Constitutional rights, they can be fined or jailed. If the act results in death, the perpetrators can be sentenced to life in prison or death. So the argument in court would be, at what point do our rights and privileges granted under the Constitution end? Well, they end where they meet constitutional laws. But to the Sovereign citizens, any law made after “Life, Liberty and Independence” doesn’t apply to them. So why was this 25-year-old studying law? Well, his mother is also a so-called sovereign citizen, and has already gone through one of these traffic stops, as has his father. His mother filed a lawsuit against a long list of police officers as well as city and county offices, among others over the traffic stop, during which she claimed she is not subject to the authority of the United States government. Her lawsuit proclaims that she is a proud descendant of “We the People” as creator and arbitrator of government. And she insists she is NOT, and NOT is capitalized, “one artificially created by government such as ‘Citizen,’ ‘Person,’ ‘Resident’ or ‘Taxpayer.'”

So she admits in her lawsuit that she doesn’t pay taxes. Good move. So it was the mother who got the son to believe there was a way to circumvent all the laws in America, and he had studied law to find these elusive loopholes his mother had pinned her hopes on. And it cost him his life. 

But this tragedy cannot be blamed entirely on the police who shot him, and have been places on leave pending an investigation. No. First of all, the fake license plate is the bait to get pulled over so you can try your legal tricks on a police officer. Police officers aren’t lawyers. Well, neither was this 25-year-old who though he had it all figured out. He wanted to get pulled over, and he did. But he made many mistakes along the way, mistakes requiring patience from the officers, which they demonstrated very well. His first mistake was making it clear he had no intention of cooperating with them. When asked for his vehicle registration, he said, “I don’t need registration and I don’t answer questions.” Presumably, without asking any questions, the police got him to hand his passport our of the driver’s side window, which he would only open a few inches. But as he handed over the passport, he claimed the person in the passport wasn’t him, even though it was. Sovereign citizens believe they are separate legal entities from the people named in official documents. Which they are, we all are, because we’re people and not sheets of paper. Once again, a play on a legal technicality. When police asked him to get out of the car, he made another mistake. He not only refused to get out of the car, which was still running, he told police they would “have an issue” if they tried to remove him from the car. Well, police don’t like that. Once a police officer asks you to get out of the car, you’re going to get out of the car one way or another. This guy who studied law certainly knows this. But he refuses, and a police officer opens the car door. This is where the 25-year-old studying law and still living with his parents made the worst mistake. Before he went out for a drive with a fake license plate just asking to get pulled over so he could try to play Jedi mind tricks on the local police, he attached a holster to his belt, on his right side, and put a hand gun in it. Police saw that handgun, and when he resisted getting out of the car, it appeared to the police he reached for his gun. This prompted the police to pull their weapons and defend themselves. The man’s gun was found on the passenger side floor of the car, so it had been unholstered, or so it would appear. The man’s refusal to do simple things like roll down the window a little further so the police could have a better view of his hands, or get out of the car when asked, or be able to show a license to operate a motor vehicle, cost him his life. But what got him to that point in time, on the side of that road, in a car with that license plate, and his belief that he was above the law and could use the law to prove it was the result of parents who believed the same thing. His mother’s tenacity in filing a lawsuit only served to strengthen his resolve to prove her right, and ultimately followed in her footsteps in attracting the attention of law enforcement. For him, though, a different generation, wearing a sidearm and displaying a blatant disrespect for not just law enforcement, but the very laws with which they claim gives them the right to civil self-determination, led to a different result. The mother still has a lawsuit pending, while the only thing pending for the son are funeral arrangements. 

There are those who will consider the man who died a martyr, a patriot. Someone who gave his life for liberty and freedom. I don’t see it that way. I see it as the fateful journey of a promising young man who was manipulated by his mother enough to be fooled into believing in the sovereign citizen myth. Although the lawsuit was file a year ago, the brainwashing that was going on for years prior could have only led to the result we found. When a mother teaches her son to disrespect the law and those who are tasked with enforcing it, while also carrying a firearm, there are only so many ultimate scenarios one might expect. 

Mothers, teach your sons (and daughters) to have respect for other people. Teach them to have respect for the laws and regulations that are in place to keep peace and order in our society. Look, I know police make mistakes, too. We’re all human. If we treat each other has human, in a humane fashion, we’ll all be much better off. If you’re a citizen, act like it, instead of trying to find loopholes around it. And by all means, if you’re carrying a firearm, cooperate if you get pulled over by the police. Even if you believe you didn’t do anything wrong. If you refuse to be pulled over by the police, you probably did do something wrong, but if you’re already pulled over, try to not screw it up. Telling them the laws don’t apply to you is not a great way to start the conversation.

The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Copyright 2023. Thank you for putting your ear to The Listening Tube! This is the last episode of season 4. I’ll be back in a couple weeks with a new, improved Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.